Meanings
- not comparableMore than partially blind, but not completely blind.
O heauens, this is my true begotten Father, who being more then sand-blinde, high grauel blinde, knows me not, I will trie confusions with him.
c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 167, column 11 more example
A deaf man may be anything from hard of hearing to as deaf as a post; a blind man may be as blind as a bat or an owl; he may be gravel-blind or stone-blind; a bald man as bald as a coot or as a billiard ball.
1942 October 3, John Ware, “Nomenclature of Night Blindness”, in British Medical Journal, volume 2, number 4265, →PMID, page 409
Origin
By analogy with sand-blind ("partly blind") and stone-blind ("entirely blind"), with the latter also formed by analogy.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
gravel-blind. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gravel-blind
“gravel-blind.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gravel-blind. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “gravel-blind,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/gravel-blind.
Source: gravel-blind on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.