Meaning
To deliberately ignore something one knows is happening, usually because it is convenient or expedient to pretend not to notice it. The ignored conduct is typically wrongdoing or a problem someone prefers not to confront. Neutral in tone but often implies culpable negligence or tacit consent. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression descends from a longer religious formula, 'to turn the deaf ear and the blind eye', used by the clergyman-philosopher John Norris in 1698 as advice to be dead to worldly temptations. Novelist Francis Lathom punned on the shortened form in 1800, a year before the Battle of Copenhagen, at which Admiral Horatio Nelson reportedly placed his telescope to his blind eye rather than read Sir Hyde Parker's signal to withdraw. Nelson did not coin the phrase and is not reliably recorded using it, but the famous incident helped fix it in everyday language; a clear short-form citation appears in The New Sporting Magazine in December 1832, about landlords overlooking poachers.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- Turn a blind eye to something
- Turn a deaf ear
- Turned a blind eye
Usage Examples
- Regulators turned a blind eye to the bank's reporting for years until the audit exposed it.
- It was easier for the neighbours to turn a blind eye to the noise than start an argument.
- The coach said he could no longer turn a blind eye when the training rules were broken so openly.