daze

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dasen,^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old Norse *dasa,^[6][3][7][5] a verb found only in the past participle dasaðr (“exhausted, worn out”) and the reflexive dasask (“to become weary”), with the reflexive suffix -sk.^[5][6][4][8] The Shorter Oxford, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the English verb from the past participle, through dazed.^[9][8][10] Related Scandinavian words are Icelandic dasi (“a lazy fellow”),^[6][8][4] Swedish dasa (“to lie idle”)^[6][8][11] and Danish dase (“to doze, mope”).^[12] The OED finds no cognates in the other Germanic languages,^[6] but Barnhart and Merriam-Webster compare Middle Dutch dasen (“to act silly”) and Dutch dazen (“to hesitate”),^[13][7] and Etymonline offers the Middle Dutch verb as a possible source instead.^[3] The Gersum Project reconstructs the ancestor as Proto-Germanic *das-, whose further origin is unclear: it is usually connected with Latin fatīgō (“to tire”) and famēs (“hunger”), as Barnhart and Merriam-Webster also do, while Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon proposed a form with lost w, as in Old English dwǣs (“dull, foolish”).^[5][13][7] Dazzle is a frequentative of the verb.^[6][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To benumb with cold, or to blight with cold: 1340, in Richard Rolle's Pricke of Conscience, a sense the OED thinks was possibly the earliest in English and that survives in Scots and northern dialect.^[6][14] Etymonline instead dates the cold sense to about 1400 and the word to the late 14th century,^[3] Barnhart to about 1380.^[15][13] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotations, from Patience and Pearl (about 1400, perhaps composed about 1380), mean to be stunned or bewildered.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The Gersum Project notes that the Middle English records are mostly from the North and the East Midlands, in texts such as Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and the Wars of Alexander.^[5] From the cold sense came the senses "stupefied" and "unable to act normally".^[14] Chaucer used dased of the eyes, dazzled by light, about 1386,^[6][16] and in the 15th century the frequentative dazzle took over this sense.^[14][6] Johnson (1755) defined daze only as to overpower with light, quoting Fairfax.^[17] The intransitive verb, to be stupefied or torpid, died out in the early 16th century.^[6][2] The noun came late: an old name for mica, from its glitter, from 1671 to the 18th century,^[6][13][9] a benumbed, spoilt condition in northern dialect from 1825,^[6] and the dazed state of mind from 1855 in the OED's record.^[6] Etymonline and Barnhart date the noun "dazed condition" to 1825.^[3][15] In Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Norfolk and elsewhere the verb was used of stunning someone with a blow, and in Scotland and Yorkshire of benumbing with cold.^[18] American campus slang has used dazing for daydreaming since the 1970s.^[19]

Timeline

• 1340 – to benumb with cold (northern and Scottish).^[6]
• c. 1386 – of the eyes, to be dazzled, in Chaucer (obsolete by 1635).^[6]
• c. 1400 – to be stunned or bewildered, in Patience (obsolete by 1529).^[6][2]
• early 15th century – to stupefy a person, as by a blow, in the Wars of Alexander.^[6]
• before 1529 – to dazzle the eyes with too much light, in Skelton.^[6]
• 1671 – noun, an old name for mica.^[6][13]
• 1769 – of bread or meat, to become spoilt (now local).^[6]
• 1825 – noun, a benumbed condition (northern dialect).^[6][13]
• 1855 – noun, a dazed state of mind, in Gaskell's North and South.^[6]
• 1977 – US campus slang, to daydream.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stun or stupefy, especially by a blow or a shock: The fall from the ladder left him dazed.^[20][7][6]
2. To dazzle with too much light: The glare off the snow dazed the climbers.^[7][20][6]
3. To bewilder or amaze.^[20][6]
4. (Scotland and northern England) To benumb or blight with cold.^[6][18]
5. (obsolete, 1400–1529) To be stupefied or bewildered.^[6][2]

Noun

1. A state of stunned confusion or bewilderment, especially in the phrase in a daze: She wandered through the station in a daze.^[20][7][6]
2. (obsolete) Mica, or any glittering stone.^[7][6][9]

Word family

• dazedly
• dazedness

Related words

• dazzle
• dastard

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
14. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
16. ^ Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
20. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins