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Blind alley   /blaɪnd ˈæli/   Listen
adjective
Blind  adj.  
1.
Destitute of the sense of seeing, either by natural defect or by deprivation; without sight. "He that is strucken blind can not forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost."
2.
Not having the faculty of discernment; destitute of intellectual light; unable or unwilling to understand or judge; as, authors are blind to their own defects. "But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more, That they may stumble on, and deeper fall."
3.
Undiscerning; undiscriminating; inconsiderate. "This plan is recommended neither to blind approbation nor to blind reprobation."
4.
Having such a state or condition as a thing would have to a person who is blind; not well marked or easily discernible; hidden; unseen; concealed; as, a blind path; a blind ditch.
5.
Involved; intricate; not easily followed or traced. "The blind mazes of this tangled wood."
6.
Having no openings for light or passage; as, a blind wall; open only at one end; as, a blind alley; a blind gut.
7.
Unintelligible, or not easily intelligible; as, a blind passage in a book; illegible; as, blind writing.
8.
(Hort.) Abortive; failing to produce flowers or fruit; as, blind buds; blind flowers.
Blind alley, an alley closed at one end; a cul-de-sac.
Blind axle, an axle which turns but does not communicate motion.
Blind beetle, one of the insects apt to fly against people, esp. at night.
Blind cat (Zool.), a species of catfish (Gronias nigrolabris), nearly destitute of eyes, living in caverns in Pennsylvania.
Blind coal, coal that burns without flame; anthracite coal.
Blind door, Blind window, an imitation of a door or window, without an opening for passage or light. See Blank door or Blank window, under Blank, a.
Blind level (Mining), a level or drainage gallery which has a vertical shaft at each end, and acts as an inverted siphon.
Blind nettle (Bot.), dead nettle. See Dead nettle, under Dead.
Blind shell (Gunnery), a shell containing no charge, or one that does not explode.
Blind side, the side which is most easily assailed; a weak or unguarded side; the side on which one is least able or disposed to see danger.
Blind snake (Zool.), a small, harmless, burrowing snake, of the family Typhlopidae, with rudimentary eyes.
Blind spot (Anat.), the point in the retina of the eye where the optic nerve enters, and which is insensible to light.
Blind tooling, in bookbinding and leather work, the indented impression of heated tools, without gilding; called also blank tooling, and blind blocking.
Blind wall, a wall without an opening; a blank wall.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Blind alley" Quotes from Famous Books



... blind alley; but in the end the duke yielded. His heart was set on carrying through this scheme for regaining his duchess. His mind was so rarely guilty of ingenuity that he could not bear to discourage it. They set themselves, therefore, to making ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson

... Sainte-Croix was in the rue des Bernardins, and the place near at hand where he was to wait for Belleguise was the room he leased from the widow Brunet, in the blind alley out of the Place Maubert. It was in this room and at the apothecary Glazer's that Sainte-Croix made his experiments; but in accordance with poetical justice, the manipulation of the poisons proved fatal to the workers themselves. The apothecary fell ill and died; Martin was attacked by ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... shop by a party of zouaves who had obtained possession of a small cask of brandy; one was already lying senseless in the gutter, while the other two tried to get away, but were too stupid and dazed to move. Loubet and Chouteau had nudged each other with the elbow and disappeared down a blind alley in pursuit of a fat woman with a loaf of bread, so that all who remained with the lieutenant were Pache and Lapoulle, with some ten ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... notoriously a profane and godless creature; a blind alley of Nature, so to speak, a mistake of which she is ashamed, and which she does not permit to reproduce itself. The thirty mules under Hal's charge had been brought up in an environment calculated to foster the worst tendencies of their natures. He soon made the discovery that the "colic" of his predecessor ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair

... stranger, I was sitting in the carriage, which stood waiting for the conclusion of the ceremony, in the road outside. I had attended early Mass, and arranged to drive home with my people. A number of boys were playing marbles outside the church-yard wall, in a blind alley. The vestry door opened and Father O'Dwyer came out, clad in his soutane and carrying the well-known whip. He crouched and crept along the wall, out through the gate and to the entrance of the alley. The boys were so intent upon their game that they never noticed his approach until he was close ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully


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