haze

/heɪz/

haze noun: very fine solid particles (smoke, dust) or liquid droplets (moisture) suspended in the air, slightly limiting visibility. (Compare fog, mist.).

Noun

haze (usually uncountable, plural hazes)

(usually) Very fine solid particles (smoke, dust) or liquid droplets (moisture) suspended in the air, slightly limiting visibility. (Compare fog, mist.)
- Our hopes, however, soon vanished; for before eight o'clock, the serenity of the sky was changed into a thick haze, accompanied with rain.1772 December, James Cook, chapter 2, in A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Around the World, volume 1
- A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched the long valley with mystery.1895, H.G. Wells, The Cone
(usually) A reduction of transparency of a clear gas or liquid.
(usually) An analogous dullness on a surface that is ideally highly reflective or transparent.
- The soap left a persistent haze on the drinking glasses.
- The furniture has a haze, possibly from some kind of wax.
(figuratively, usually) Any state suggestive of haze in the atmosphere, such as mental confusion or vagueness of memory.
- And is it that the haze of grief
  ⁠Hath stretch’d my former joy so great?
  ⁠The lowness of the present state,
  That sets the past in this relief?1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXIV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 41
- In my haze of alcohol, I thought for one crazy instant that he had plumbed my secret.1957, Daphne du Maurier, The Scapegoat, →ISBN, page 218
(usually, packaging) The degree of cloudiness or turbidity in a clear glass or plastic, measured in percent.
- Haze is listed as a percent value and, typically, is about 1% for meat film.1998, Leonard I. Nass, Charles A. Heiberger, Encyclopedia of PVC, →ISBN, page 318
(countable, usually) Any substance causing turbidity in beer or wine.
- Various clarifying and fining agents are used in winemaking to remove hazes.1985, Philip Jackisch, Modern Winemaking, →ISBN, page 69

Verb (1)

haze (third-person singular simple present hazes, present participle hazing, simple past and past participle hazed)

To be or become hazy, or thick with haze.
- Pyramids of clouds now fringed its edge, and the centre had hazed into a sandy mist.1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 268

Verb (2)

haze (third-person singular simple present hazes, present participle hazing, simple past and past participle hazed)

(US, informal) To perform an unpleasant initiation ritual upon a usually non-consenting person, especially freshmen to a closed community such as a college fraternity or military unit.
To oppress or harass by forcing to do hard and unnecessary work.
- […] when the young man whirled his horse, “hazed” Jupiter in circles and belaboured him with a rawhide quirt, […] He ceased his cavortings […]1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter I, in The Understanding Heart
(transitive) In a rodeo, to assist the bulldogger by keeping (the steer) running in a straight line.
(transitive) To use aversive stimuli on (a wild animal, such as a bear) to encourage it to keep its distance from humans.
- Hazing a bear involves creating a "negative experience for a bear that seeks out human food or loses its natural avoidance of humans and developed areas," the release said. That involves using non-lethal rubber shotgun slugs, or rubber rounds and noise-deterrent rounds in sequence to scare bears...2016 July 18, Annie Zak, “Brown bear seriously injured in 'hazing' attempt in Southeast Alaska”, in Anchorage Daily News

Proper noun capitalized: Haze

Haze

A diminutive of the female given name Hazel.

haze meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

haze in Hindi

very fine particles suspended in the air: धुंध dhundh

haze in Tamil

புகை, போக்குவரத்து மாசு, பனி போல் மூட்டம், மங்கல், வான்மங்கல், மனக்குழப்பம்

haze in Urdu

ابہام, دھند, دھندلا پن, کہر

haze in Malayalam

മൂടൽമഞ്ഞ്, മങ്ങൽ, അവ്യക്തത

More languagesFewer languages

haze in Kannada: ಮಬ್ಬು, ಮಸುಕು, ತೆಳುಮಂಜು, ಕಾವಳ
haze in Arabic: عَجَاج ʕajāj
haze in Malay: jerebu
haze in Indonesian: jerebu, kabur
haze in Persian: نزم nezm
haze in Thai: ฝุ่นควัน fùn-kwan

Examples of haze in a sentence

But these tasks are difficult for the recent history of the form, since our perceptions are clouded by the haze of historical proximity.1994, Michael Thomas Roeder, A History of the Concerto, page 312:
Because he chose to be "a citizen of somewhere else," we glimpse him now only "through the haze of memory."2005, Dane Anthony Morrison, Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory, page 179:
I've spent years in a haze, trying to forget my past.2017, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, directed by Taika Waititi, Thor: Ragnarok, spoken by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson):

All 40 example sentences with haze

Forms of haze

Noun
plural	hazes
alternative form	hase
Verb
third-person singular present	hazes
present participle	hazing
past participle	hazed
past	hazed

Plural of haze: hazes

Origin of haze

* The earliest instances are of the latter part of the 17th century. * Possibly back-formation from hazy. * Compare Old Norse höss (“grey”), akin to Old English hasu (“gray”).

Possibly from hawze (“terrify, frighten, confound”), from Middle French haser (“irritate, annoy”)

Words formed from haze

Words that rhyme with haze

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about haze

What does haze mean?: Haze means very fine solid particles (smoke, dust) or liquid droplets (moisture) suspended in the air, slightly limiting visibility. (Compare fog, mist.).
What is haze in Hindi?: Haze in Hindi is धुंध (dhundh). See Haze meaning in Hindi.
How do you use haze in a sentence?: But these tasks are difficult for the recent history of the form, since our perceptions are clouded by the haze of historical proximity.
What part of speech is haze?: Haze can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce haze?: Haze is pronounced /heɪz/.
What is the plural of haze?: The plural of haze is hazes.

Words near haze in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: haze (page history and authors); Haze (page history and authors); haze (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); haze (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); haze (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); haze (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-haze.wav.

Cite this entry: “haze.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/haze. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.