Blearedness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A condition marked by reduced clarity, leading to both visual obscurity and a vague understanding of surrounding elements
2. The quality of being indistinct and lacking clear focus in vision
3. A state where visual details appear fuzzy or not sharply defined

Etymology: Blearedness is a plain formation: the adjective "bleared" with the suffix "-ness" added to turn a quality into a noun. The adjective itself comes from "blear," a word whose original sense was about the eyes rather than about vision in general. To be bleared was to have eyes that were dimmed or watery, as if clouded over, and the picture that comes with it is of eyes blurred by tears, fatigue or age. The suffix does the work of the whole word. "-Ness" descends from Old English "-nes," a noun-forming ending attached to adjectives since the earliest English records, and it has produced countless abstract nouns such as "kindness" and "darkness." Adding it to "bleared" yields a term for the state of having such dim, unfocused eyes, which is how the word still reads today.