haze

• hase (obsolete)

• enPR: hāz, IPA^(key): /heɪz/
• 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.
   • 1772 December, James Cook, A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Around the World, vol. 1 ch. 2:

     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.
   • 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."

5. (uncountable, engineering, packaging) The degree of cloudiness or turbidity in a clear glass or plastic, measured in percent.
   • 1998, Leonard I. Nass and 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.

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

1. To be hazy, or thick with haze.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ray to this entry?)

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 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.

• haze in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.