the.com/dazzle
Warships once wore cubist war paint not to hide, but to confuse the math of murder.
means To overwhelm someone with brilliant light, beauty, or skill — or, as a verb of light itself, to blind briefly with intensity.
from A frequentative of the older verb 'daze' (Middle English 'dasen,' to stun or bewilder, likely from a Scandinavian source — Old Norse had 'dasask,' to grow weary). Adding the '-le' ending gave it that flickering, repeated quality: not a single stun but a rapid stutter of stunning, light that hits again and again. The naval 'dazzle camouflage' borrowed the word straight from this sense — paint designed not to conceal a ship but to daze the eye into mismeasuring its speed and heading.
- naval origin
- Dazzle camouflage debuted on WWI ships in 1917
- goal
- Scrambled speed and heading, not visibility
- artist roots
- Painter Norman Wilkinson invented the chaotic stripes
- submarine foil
- Confused U-boat gunners aiming through periscopes
- animal version
- Zebra stripes may dazzle biting flies
dazzle camouflage — wwi naval camouflage pattern with bold stripes used by british and american warships
dazzle of zebras — collective noun for a group of zebras, named for their striking striped pattern