Other forms: blindfolds
A blindfold is a cloth tied over the eyes so nothing can be seen. Wear a blindfold, remove the blindfold, blindfolded and led away.
The word looks like blind plus fold and is really blind plus felled — struck blind — with the ending reshaped over time because fold made more sense to English speakers. Blindfold chess is played from memory alone and grandmasters manage several games at once.
1nounblindfoldA cloth tied over the eyes.
“They put a blindfold on the birthday girl and led her to her surprise.”
blindfold is a covering.
From Middle English blindfelled, struck blind, from fell, to strike down. The ending was reshaped to fold because that seemed to make sense.
Middle English
blyndefolde
English, today
blindfold
Built from
From Middle English blyndefolde, blyndfuld, blynfold, blindfeld, blindfelt, yblynfeld, variants of y-blyndfalled, blyndfelled, etc. "stricken blind, blindfolded", past participle of Middle English blindfellen (“to strike blind”), from blind (“to blind”) and fellen (“to fell”), equivalent to blind + felled. Later influenced by the unrelated verb fold.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA