Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Atmospheric moisture, dust, smoke, and vapor that diminishes visibility.
  • noun A partially opaque covering.
  • noun A vague or confused state of mind.
  • intransitive verb To become misty or hazy; blur.
  • transitive verb To persecute or harass with meaningless, difficult, or humiliating tasks.
  • transitive verb To initiate, as into a college fraternity, by exacting humiliating performances from or playing rough practical jokes upon.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To drizzle.
  • To be or become foggy or hazy.
  • noun The aggregation of a countless multitude of extremely minute and even ultra-microscopic particles in the air, individually invisible, but producing in the aggregate an opaqueness of the atmosphere.
  • To harass with labor; punish with unnecessary work, as a seaman.
  • To play mischievous or abusive tricks on; try the pluck or temper of, especially by physical persecution, as lower-class students in a college or new-comers in an establishment of any kind.
  • To frolic; lark.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Light vapor or smoke in the air which more or less impedes vision, with little or no dampness; a lack of transparency in the air; hence, figuratively, obscurity; dimness.
  • noun A state of confusion, uncertainty, or vagueness of thought or perception.
  • intransitive verb To be hazy, or thick with haze.
  • transitive verb To harass by exacting unnecessary, disagreeable, or difficult work.
  • transitive verb To harass or annoy by playing abusive or shameful tricks upon; to humiliate by practical jokes; -- used esp. of college students, as an initiation rite into a fraternity or other group.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb US, informal To perform an unpleasant initiation ritual upon a usually non-consenting individual, especially freshmen to a closed community such as a college or military unit.
  • verb To oppress or harass by forcing to do hard and unnecessary work.
  • noun uncountable Very fine solid particles (smoke, dust) or liquid droplets (moisture) suspended in the air, slightly limiting visibility.
  • noun uncountable A reduction of transparency of a clear gas or liquid.
  • noun An analogous dullness on a surface that is ideally highly reflective or transparent.
  • noun uncountable, figuratively Any state suggestive of haze in the atmosphere, such as mental confusion or vagueness of memory.
  • noun uncountable, engineering The degree of cloudiness or turbidity in a clear glass or plastic, measured in percent.
  • noun countable, brewing Any substance causing turbidity in beer or wine.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb harass by imposing humiliating or painful tasks, as in military institutions
  • verb become hazy, dull, or cloudy
  • noun atmospheric moisture or dust or smoke that causes reduced visibility
  • noun confusion characterized by lack of clarity

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably back-formation from hazy.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Perhaps from obsolete haze, to frighten, from obsolete French haser, to annoy, from Old French.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

Comments

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  • HAZE - a contraction.

    Usage: "Is Bubba smart?" "Nah...haze ignert. He ain't thanked but a

    minnit'n 'is laf."

    April 8, 2008

  • All hands were called to "come up and see it rain," and kept on deck hour after hour in a drenching rain, standing round the deck so far apart so as to prevent our talking with one another, with our tarpaulins and oil-cloth jackets on, picking old rope to pieces, or laying up gaskets and robands. This was often done, too, when we were lying in port with two anchors down, and no necessity for more than one man on deck as a lookout. This is what is called "hazing" a crew, and "working their old iron up."

    - Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, ch. 14

    September 6, 2008

  • A strain of medical marijuana.

    January 15, 2010