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Amaze vs Dazzle - What's the difference?

amaze | dazzle | Related terms |

In intransitive terms the difference between amaze and dazzle

is that amaze is to undergo amazement; to be astounded while dazzle is to be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.

As verbs the difference between amaze and dazzle

is that amaze is to stupefy; to knock unconscious while dazzle is to confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness.

As nouns the difference between amaze and dazzle

is that amaze is amazement, astonishment while dazzle is a light of dazzling brilliancy.

amaze

English

Verb

(amaz)
  • (obsolete) To stupefy; to knock unconscious.
  • (obsolete) To bewilder; to stupefy; to bring into a maze.
  • * Shakespeare
    • a labyrinth to amaze his foes
  • (obsolete) To terrify, to fill with panic.
  • *, New York Review Books 2001, p.261:
    • [Fear] amazeth many men that are to speak or show themselves in public assemblies, or before some great personages […].
  • To fill with wonder and surprise; to astonish, astound, surprise or perplex.
    • He was amazed when he found that the girl was a robot.
  • * Bible, Matthew xii. 23
    • And all the people were amazed , and said, Is not this the son of David?
  • * Goldsmith
    • Spain has long fallen from amazing Europe with her wit, to amusing them with the greatness of her Catholic credulity.
  • To undergo amazement; to be astounded.

    • Related terms

    * amazing * amazement

    Noun

    (-)
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , I.ii:
    • All in amaze he suddenly vp start / With sword in hand, and with the old man went [...].
  • * 1891 , (Mary Noailles Murfree), In the "Stranger People's" Country , Nebraska 2005, p. 103:
    • Shattuck looked at him in amaze .
  • * 1985 , (Lawrence Durrell), Quinx'', Faber & Faber 2004 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 1361:
    • She took the proffered cheque and stared at it with puzzled amaze , dazed by her own behaviour.

    dazzle

    English

    Verb

    (dazzl)
  • To confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness.
    • Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
  • * Milton
    • Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
  • * Sir H. Taylor
    • An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.
  • (figuratively) To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.
    • The delegates were dazzled by the originality of his arguments.
  • To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • An overlight maketh the eyes dazzle .
  • * Dryden
    • I dare not trust these eyes; / They dance in mists, and dazzle with surprise.

    Derived terms

    * dazzler * dazzlement

    Noun

    (s)
  • A light of dazzling brilliancy.
  • (uncommon) A herd of zebra.
  • * 1958', Laurens Van der Post, ''The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory'' (' 1998 David Coulson edition):
    • We were trying to stalk a dazzle of zebra which flashed in and out of a long strip of green and yellow fever trees, with an ostrich, its feathers flared like a ballet skirt around its dancing legs, on their flank, when suddenly
  • * 2009 , Darren Paul Shearer, In You God Trusts , page 176:
    • Zebras move in herds which are known as "dazzles." When a lion approaches a dazzle of zebras during its hunt,
  • * 2010 , Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa , page 22:
    • I reached the lodge as a dazzle of zebras trotted across the dirt road into thorny scrub by the game fence, and a lone kudu gazed up at me from the short grass near the swimming pool.

    Synonyms

    * herd