haze

• hase (obsolete)

• enPR: hāz, IPA^(key): /heɪz/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪz
• Homophones: hays, heys

• 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”). [1]

(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)Origin unknown; there is nothing to connect the word with Old English hasu, haso (“gray”).

haze (usually uncountable, plural hazes)

1. 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.

2. A reduction of transparency of a clear gas or liquid.
3. 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.

4. (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.

5. (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.

6. (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.

• qobar
• smaze
• smog
• vog

haze (third-person singular simple present hazes, present participle hazing, simple past and past participle hazed)

1. 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.

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

haze (third-person singular simple present hazes, present participle hazing, simple past and past participle hazed)

1. (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.
2. 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 […]

3. (transitive) In a rodeo, to assist the bulldogger by keeping (the steer) running in a straight line.
4. (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.

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