color blindness

noun

variants or colorblindness

ˈkə-lər-ˌblīnd-nəs 

or less commonly color-blindness

: the quality or state of being color-blind: such as

a

: partial or total inability to distinguish one or more chromatic colors

In color blindness which affects as many as 8 to 10 percent of men, a person may lose the ability to see all colors or merely the capacity to discriminate between certain hues.

—R. Lipkin

"Colorblindness" is almost always a misnomer. In the vast majority of cases, people can still see many colors, but they can't discriminate as many as people with regular vision.

—Amos Zeeberg

b

: the act or practice of treating all people the same regardless of race

For [Justice John] Harlan, color blindness forbade the state from creating invidious racial categories; for Rehnquist (and Reagan and Steele), color blindness means racial neutrality—as if we live in a world where wishing makes prejudice go away.

—Julian Bond

Note: While this sense can be used with positive connotations of freedom from racial prejudice, it often suggests a failure or refusal to acknowledge or address the many racial inequities that exist in society, or to acknowledge important aspects of racial identity.

Many sociologists, though, are extremely critical of colorblindness as an ideology. They argue that as the mechanisms that reproduce racial inequality have become more covert and obscure than they were during the era of open, legal segregation, the language of explicit racism has given way to a discourse of colorblindness.

—Adia Harvey Wingfield

They [critics] argue that since race is a major contributing factor in all sorts of societal outcomes, from who goes to jail to what educational opportunities a child has, to adopt color-blindness as an ideology is to ignore important discrepancies, thereby allowing them to fester.

—Jesse Singal

Examples of color blindness in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Bouillabaisse à la Marseillaise, in gray scale, color, and simulating the most common form of color blindness (based on daltonlens.org). —Isabel Gauthier, Discover Magazine, 21 Sep. 2024

Top row shows the dishes in color, while the bottom row simulates the most common form of color blindness (based on daltonlens.org). —Isabel Gauthier, Discover Magazine, 21 Sep. 2024

The picture accompanying this story was changed to better accommodate readers with color blindness. —Byzack Savitsky, science.org, 29 July 2024

Your front-page article regarding the writings of Martin Luther King starkly illustrates how the anti-diversity movement uses the idea of color blindness to mask their intentions to reverse decades of civil rights successes and ongoing diversity and equity efforts. —Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 18 Jan. 2024

One reader's submission argues that so long as race means something in our society, color blindness can’t exist. —Ruth Umoh, Fortune, 13 Sep. 2023

According to the National Eye Institute, color blindness is a condition in which a person sees color differently than most people. —David Chiu, Peoplemag, 23 Oct. 2023

Milbank Quarterly The Big Think The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf posits an interesting question for readers to chew over: Is racial color blindness possible in personal interactions? —Ruth Umoh, Fortune, 13 Sep. 2023

For those without color blindness, the lenses give a high-definition effect to the view. —Michelle Matthews | [e-mail], al, 20 July 2023

Word History

Etymology

color-blind + -ness, after blindness

First Known Use

1844, in the meaning defined above

Medical Definition

color blindness

noun

variants or colorblindness also color-blindness

ˈkəl-ər-ˌblīn(d)-nəs 

: partial or total inability to distinguish one or more chromatic colors

Different forms of color blindness result from the loss or modification of one or more of the cone opsins.

—Jean Bennett, The New England Journal of Medicine

"Colorblindness" is almost always a misnomer. In the vast majority of cases, people can still see many colors, but they can't discriminate as many as people with regular vision.

—Amos Zeeberg, The Atlantic

see also red-green color blindness