Other forms: dazzling, dazzled, dazzles
To dazzle somebody is to blind them briefly with light that is too bright — headlights on a wet road, sun off a windscreen, a camera flash in a dark room. The eye recovers, but for a second it cannot see.
From that comes the commoner figurative sense: to impress somebody so much that they cannot think straight. Dazzled by her talent, dazzled by the price. It is a compliment with a shadow in it — being dazzled implies your judgement was overwhelmed, which is why advertisers like the word and sceptics use it as a warning. The noun dazzle is the glare itself, and dazzling as an adjective has drifted almost entirely to the figurative side: a dazzling performance is not a bright one.
1verbdazzleTo blind somebody for a moment with very bright light.
“The low sun dazzled drivers coming the other way.”
synonyms: blind
2verbimpressTo impress somebody so much that they cannot judge clearly.
“He dazzled the interview panel and got the job.”
3nounhardBright light that makes it hard to see.
“The dazzle off the water was worse than the heat.”
dazzle is an effect of bright light.
From daze + le, a frequentative form.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Verbs, Ways of Looking