# haze
## English
### Alternative forms

* hase (obsolete)

### Pronunciation

* enPR: hāz, IPA: /heɪz/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -eɪz
* Homophones: hays, heys

### Etymology 1

* The earliest instances are of the latter part of the 17th century.
* Possibly back-formation from hazy.
* Compare Old Norse höss (“grey”), akin to Old English hasu (“gray”).

#### Noun

haze (usually uncountable, plural hazes)
* Very fine solid particles (smoke, dust) or liquid droplets (moisture) suspended in the air, slightly limiting visibility. (Compare fog, mist.)
** 1772 December, James Cook, chapter 2, in A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Around the World, volume 1:Our hopes, however, soon vanished; for before eight o'clock, the serenity of the sky was changed into a thick haze, accompanied with rain.
** 1895, H.G. Wells, The Cone:A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched the long valley with mystery.
** 2013 June 29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29:Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia.
* A reduction of transparency of a clear gas or liquid.
* An analogous dullness on a surface that is ideally highly reflective or transparent.
    The soap left a persistent haze on the drinking glasses.
    The furniture has a haze, possibly from some kind of wax.
* (figuratively) Any state suggestive of haze in the atmosphere, such as mental confusion or vagueness of memory.
** 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto XXIV, page 41:And is it that the haze of grief ⁠Hath stretch’d my former joy so great? ⁠The lowness of the present state, That sets the past in this relief?
** 1957, Daphne du Maurier, The Scapegoat‎, →ISBN, page 218:In my haze of alcohol, I thought for one crazy instant that he had plumbed my secret.
** 1994, Michael Thomas Roeder, A History of the Concerto, page 312:But these tasks are difficult for the recent history of the form, since our perceptions are clouded by the haze of historical proximity.
** 2005, Dane Anthony Morrison, Nancy Lusignan Schultz, Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory, page 179:Because he chose to be "a citizen of somewhere else," we glimpse him now only "through the haze of memory."
** 2017, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost, directed by Taika Waititi, Thor: Ragnarok, spoken by Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson):I've spent years in a haze, trying to forget my past. Sakaar seemed like the best place to drink, and to forget... and to die, one day.
* (uncountable, engineering, packaging) The degree of cloudiness or turbidity in a clear glass or plastic, measured in percent.
** 1998, Leonard I. Nass, Charles A. Heiberger, Encyclopedia of PVC‎, →ISBN, page 318:Haze is listed as a percent value and, typically, is about 1% for meat film.
* (countable, brewing) Any substance causing turbidity in beer or wine.
** 1985, Philip Jackisch, Modern Winemaking‎, →ISBN, page 69:Various clarifying and fining agents are used in winemaking to remove hazes.

##### Hyponyms

* qobar
* smaze
* smog
* vog

##### Derived terms

* Arctic haze
* damp haze
* dry haze
* haze over
* hazy
* heat haze
* laze
* purple haze
* smaze
* wet haze

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### Verb

haze (third-person singular simple present hazes, present participle hazing, simple past and past participle hazed)
* To be or become hazy, or thick with haze.
** 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 268:Pyramids of clouds now fringed its edge, and the centre had hazed into a sandy mist.

### Etymology 2

Possibly from hawze (“terrify, frighten, confound”), from Middle French haser (“irritate, annoy”)

#### Verb

haze (third-person singular simple present hazes, present participle hazing, simple past and past participle hazed)
* (US, informal) To perform an unpleasant initiation ritual upon a usually non-consenting individual, especially freshmen to a closed community such as a college fraternity or military unit.
* To oppress or harass by forcing to do hard and unnecessary work.
** 1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter I, in The Understanding Heart:[…] when the young man whirled his horse, “hazed” Jupiter in circles and belaboured him with a rawhide quirt, […] He ceased his cavortings […]
* (transitive) In a rodeo, to assist the bulldogger by keeping (the steer) running in a straight line.
* (transitive) To use aversive stimuli on (a wild animal, such as a bear) to encourage it to keep its distance from humans.
** 2016 July 18, Annie Zak, “Brown bear seriously injured in 'hazing' attempt in Southeast Alaska”, in Anchorage Daily News:Hazing a bear involves creating a "negative experience for a bear that seeks out human food or loses its natural avoidance of humans and developed areas," the release said. That involves using non-lethal rubber shotgun slugs, or rubber rounds and noise-deterrent rounds in sequence to scare bears away, according to the release.

##### Translations
### Further reading

* “haze”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

### References

* ↑ “haze”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.