Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Having eyes that are tired, watery, or dimmed, often from exhaustion, sleepiness, or crying: Describes the physical appearance of eyes that are not clear or sharp, typically due to fatigue.
   • Dull or dim in perception; mentally foggy: Can describe a state of mental weariness or lack of sharpness.

Usage Examples

• Adjective:
  • After studying all night, she was blear-eyed and could barely focus.
  • The blear-eyed child rubbed his eyes, struggling to stay awake.
  • He gave a blear-eyed look at the alarm clock, wishing for more sleep.

Advanced Usage

• "blear-eyed with fatigue": extremely tired to the point where the eyes are affected.
  • The nurses, blear-eyed with fatigue after their double shift, continued their rounds.
• Used to describe a vague, unfocused, or dim outlook, not just a physical state.
  • He viewed the future with a blear-eyed pessimism.

Variants and Related Words

• Blear (verb): To make (the eyes or vision) dim or unclear.
  • Tears bleared her vision.
• Bleary (adjective): (Of the eyes) unfocused or filmy from sleep or tiredness. Often used interchangeably with "blear-eyed," though "bleary" is more common.
  • He had bleary eyes in the morning.
• Blearily (adverb): In a bleary-eyed manner.
  • He looked blearily around the room.

Synonyms

• Weary-eyed: Having tired eyes.
• Sleepy-eyed: Having eyes heavy with sleep.
• Heavy-lidded: Having eyelids that seem weighted down, often from tiredness.

Related Phrases

• To have bleary eyes: A common phrase describing the condition.
  • She woke up with bleary eyes.
• Bleary vision: Blurred or dimmed eyesight.
  • The medicine caused temporary bleary vision.

Notes on Meaning

• The primary meaning relates directly to the physical condition of the eyes () being blear (dim, watery). The sense of being "tired to the point of exhaustion" is a consequence or cause of this physical state.
• It is a descriptive, often literary word. In everyday modern English, "bleary-eyed" is the more frequently used form.

Adjective

1. tired to the point of exhaustion