Home British & World English vision

Definition of vision in English:

vision

noun

  • 1mass noun The faculty or state of being able to see.

    ‘she had defective vision’
    • ‘A team of researchers exploring the eye's genetic make-up say they may have found a gene able to restore some vision in people who have gone blind.’
    • ‘She is now completely blind in both eyes but still attends Moorfields Eye Hospital in London and hopes surgeons will one day be able to restore her vision.’
    • ‘Those that serve the special senses of smell and vision are purely sensory, and differ from the rest in being essentially extensions of the brain itself.’
    • ‘Soon, I was able to focus my vision and recognized a tall rose garden just outside the elevator exit through the open door of the cab.’
    • ‘In fact most people do not realise there are at least eight different classifications of colour defective vision plus individual variations.’
    • ‘Relaxation is one of the treatments for defective vision.’
    • ‘They have keen hearing and good senses of vision and smell.’
    • ‘Humans, once they have been transformed, have a greater sense of smell, better vision, and elevated hearing.’
    • ‘Some people have an unusually acute sense of vision, hearing, or smell, what psychologists call hyperesthesia.’
    • ‘She carries a comprehensive electronic package in her wheelhouse which gives superb all round vision.’
    • ‘He moves the ball about quickly and effectively, and his vision and awareness are second to none.’
    • ‘Chloe realized that even though she had perfect vision, she was having a hard time reading.’
    • ‘Defective vision due to short sight or long sight can be corrected by wearing spectacles, contact lenses or by LASIK.’
    • ‘I have a sense of vision, taste, hearing and smell.’
    • ‘In the end, understanding the brain turned out to require understanding vision.’
    • ‘Slowness influences not only Franklin's behaviour, but also his vision, his thought and his speech.’
    • ‘Future treatment will focus on strengthening the left eye and electrical tests to see why her vision is not perfect.’
    • ‘This causes delayed reactions, decreased vision, impaired sensory perception and postural imbalance.’
    • ‘As the lights grew brighter, and his vision adjusted, Mark was able to make out a figure in the distance, running toward him.’
    • ‘Perception, whether through vision or any other sense, is an acquired taste.’
    eyesight, sight, power of sight, faculty of sight, ability to see, power of seeing, powers of observation, observation, perception, visual perception
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    1. 1.1The images seen on a television screen.
      ‘the box converts the digital signal into sound and vision on an ordinary TV’
      • ‘The visitors will be able to read a news bulletin or operate the camera, sound, vision desks or autocue.’
      • ‘The adult education programme, religious service or sports outside broadcast would fade from view and the duty continuity announcer appear in vision.’
      • ‘Baker did not appear in vision because at that time presenters did not appear on screen.’
      • ‘The sound is travelling slower than the big screen vision!’
      • ‘Reading the subtitles takes vision away from the image and allows one to leave the confines of the car.’
      • ‘It was not, however, much of an improvement on the radio news, consisting as it did of a series of still images depicting the news being read out of vision.’
      • ‘We literally had to control all the sound and vision as the continuity announcer would do.’
      • ‘This is not the usual on screen vision, so you'll have to come along and see what is happening.’
      • ‘By this time the BBC had moved to using the National Anthem as merely an accompaniment in sound to their revolving globe in vision.’
      • ‘Voice-over - The part of a news story when a reporter narrates and vision is shown.’
      • ‘The bulletin, about the third in 20 minutes, in vision, lasted no more than ten seconds.’

  • 2mass noun The ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.

    ‘the organization had lost its vision and direction’
    • ‘The question of the Labor leadership is a question about Labor's future direction and policy vision for Australia.’
    • ‘We set out to be a Government with a clear direction and vision for the future, supported by the broad mainstream of New Zealanders.’
    • ‘Companies with the right vision can begin planning their future activities along these lines.’
    • ‘Is it DeBeers' worst nightmare or their vision for a sparkly future?’
    • ‘Their vision, imagination, intuition, dream mythology and capacity to play, are all fully formed.’
    • ‘We need a return to foresight and vision to plan for the Basingstoke of 2030.’
    • ‘The wisdom we seek may be better found by enlisting vision and imagination rather than dismissing them.’
    • ‘Artistic vision, imagination and intuition seem poised in tense opposition to order and rationality.’
    • ‘The future of such traffic decisions depends on what political vision will prevail.’
    • ‘What is needed is vision and the ability to alter the terms of politics once again.’
    • ‘But in reality language controls us, our vision, our imagination.’
    • ‘After years of talking about their plans and their vision for how the industry could develop, they scraped together enough funds to form a partnership.’
    • ‘We need a Council with vision and the ability and willingness to make decisions on the issues presented not the people involved.’
    • ‘In fact the crown prince's vision and peace plan dovetails nicely with the president's views.’
    • ‘A commitment to such action by any government can only be regarded as an unusual act of political vision.’
    • ‘Their vision, ability to make things happen, and possible charisma make Directors ideal leaders.’
    • ‘How can we change the terms of political debate to advance our own moral message and vision of a better future?’
    • ‘Slowly but surely with vision, imagination and hard work it began to capture the interest of the reading public.’
    • ‘Just think what you could achieve with vision, imagination and drive.’
    • ‘He had vision and was able to make things happen.’
    imagination, creativity, creative power, inventiveness, innovation, inspiration, intuition, perceptiveness, perception, breadth of view, foresight, insight, far-sightedness, prescience, discernment, awareness, penetration, shrewdness, sharpness, cleverness
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    1. 2.1count noun A mental image of what the future will or could be like.
      ‘a utopian vision of society’
      • ‘He was the foremost influence on her politics, a man with no party membership but a socialist vision of how society could and should be.’
      • ‘Utopias hold out for a vision of the future - a vision of how society ought to be.’
      • ‘His document looks at the country's declining birth rate and the continuing brain drain and presents an apocalyptic vision of the future in Scotland.’
      • ‘Their efforts for educational advancement lack clear perception of the present and a flawed vision of the future.’
      • ‘Is this a Utopian vision of the leisured society of the future, as liberated by technology?’
      • ‘If secret societies and weird visions of the future are you cup of tea, drink up.’
      • ‘He also suggested the Greens had a vision of the future that was even more oriented to Maori sovereignty than was Labour's.’
      • ‘The new head teacher has a clear vision for the future based on an accurate view of the school's strengths and weaknesses.’
      • ‘If the business could not sustain itself, they would not be able to fulfil their vision of making all the world's information easily available to users without charge.’
      • ‘Deep down, we sense that we'll never be able to attain this vision on our own.’
      • ‘Through donations of second-hand equipment and visits by volunteers, Mr Pun was able to turn his vision of a networked Nepal into reality.’
      • ‘It formally backed the plans of York City Council to create a strategic planning vision for the future of the city.’
      • ‘City's board of directors unveiled their future vision, after revealing details of the deal which means the club can stay at its current home.’
      • ‘And this is because of what was not in it - no plan for the future, no vision for Australia, no ideas.’
      • ‘Of course we need a long range plan / vision to guide us.’
      • ‘This is the starkest, most distopian vision of a wireless future imaginable.’
      • ‘They also acknowledged his clear plans for the future and his vision for the business and the dairy industry.’
      • ‘The vision includes plans for an annual volunteer week in an effort to increase the numbers of people engaged in voluntary and community activities.’
      • ‘A candidate must have a vision that voters can believe in and he must be able to convince the voters that he has the ability to see his vision through.’
      • ‘Instead of his artistic ambitions being welcomed, his plans and his vision were distrusted, or simply misunderstood.’
      concept, idea, impression, mental picture, view, image, mental image, vision, visualization, notion, theory, abstraction
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  • 3An experience of seeing someone or something in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition.

    ‘the idea came to him in a vision’
    • ‘Fields, an artist from Winston-Salem, N.C., reportedly produces his work while experiencing visions in a trance.’
    • ‘Didn't anyone anywhere else, in any other period of history, experience dreams, visions, prophecies of God?’
    • ‘She succeeds, but just as she brings Tom out of his trance he experiences a terrifying vision which send him into a panic.’
    • ‘Without the witches, the ghost, the visions, and the apparitions, ‘Macbeth’ would have been a dull and tiresome play.’
    • ‘The world of dreams, of trances and of visions would have been to them a real and undifferentiated part of their existence.’
    • ‘As if he had captured his fantastic dreams and visions and put them on canvas, Dalí was a master and a pioneer of the surrealistic movement.’
    • ‘From the earliest times, both traditions have learned caution regarding possible visions or apparitions of Christ that do not clearly manifest the five wounds of His passion and death.’
    • ‘Through it, man no longer sees his source reflected in the world, or dreams, visions and voices, but experiences it directly.’
    • ‘This is a play where priests are elderly and drunk, old ladies mutter curses and blessings, supernatural visions are everywhere and nobody can open their mouth without uttering a mystical insight.’
    • ‘Two other actors (Robert Lalonde and Patricia Nolin) do double duty as hospital staff and as apparitions in these nightmarish visions.’
    • ‘The only time that she is able to express herself is when she is talking with the dead or experiencing a vision.’
    • ‘While in Auxerre Abbey he experienced a vision in which Saint Germain instructed him to find Selby and build an abbey there.’
    • ‘These scenes of retrieval of the past are presented as Jones's dreams or hallucinations, half-light phantasmagoric visions.’
    • ‘Ms Vine and Ms Kitson use trances and visions, clairvoyance, dowsing and psychometry trying to pick up stories in the mind from objects to uncover any paranormal activity.’
    • ‘This transformation, displayed in haunting dream sequences and eerie visions, makes for some genuinely frightening and heart-stopping moments.’
    • ‘The first outcome of this is their book, Philosophy of Madness, where six of the club's poets-users talk about their visions, fears, dreams and life.’
    • ‘About a year ago, my military dreams began - intense visions of entrapment and escaping, of being marked in the eye with laser rays, etc.’
    • ‘While Muldrow's dream visions have an element of danger, more often than not they are beneficial to and symbolic of his practical challenges.’
    • ‘Oh, yes, it was having a sweet old time dreaming visions of sugar-plums before we came along.’
    • ‘But Pierre is haunted by a vision in his dreams of a strange, dark-haired peasant woman who attracts him in unexplainable ways.’
    apparition, spectre, phantom, hallucination, ghost, wraith, shadow, manifestation, chimera, illusion, mirage, image
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    1. 3.1often visionsA vivid mental image, especially a fanciful one of the future.
      ‘he had visions of becoming the Elton John of his time’
      • ‘I suddenly had visions of M serving them up for months on end topped with wholemeal flour.’
      • ‘I suddenly had visions of having to mow around Bruno.’
      • ‘I had visions of him going into a coma, though I'm sure he'd probably just throw up.’
      • ‘When my new baby turned out to be a girl, I had visions of female warriorship for her future.’
      • ‘When I found out that I was expecting her I did think about the fact that that's us with a child at home for the next umpteen years, because we had reached the stage where we had visions of child-free weekends.’
      • ‘I had visions of a new section at the end of the programme, in which Huw changed into a nice comfy sweater and sat in an armchair while replying to a query from Myrtle in Oxfordshire about her husband's lack of interest in sex.’
      • ‘I had visions of fillings in all my teeth, long lectures and tellings off about my lack of regular visits, lots of tooth wrenching scraping with the metal thing that would leave my teeth feeling loose for two weeks.’
      • ‘As an Aussie abroad for Christmas, I had visions of myself as an Oliver Twist character, alone, miserable, bereft of friends and family for the festive season.’
      • ‘When I was much younger, I had visions of cities in the sky, monorails, jet pack travel, houses that cleaned themselves and yes, flying cars.’
      • ‘I sat there for a very short while but it was too busy to rest easy, and I had visions of swarms of genetically-enhanced bees and wasps rising from the depths of the hedge to descend upon me, stingers to the fore.’
      • ‘Tow truck came back about an hour later, hooked up the car… after a little panic when his tow rope stopped moving… and I had visions of them having to send out another truck.’
      • ‘He had visions of managing a world-class superstar in the vein of Tom Jones.’
      • ‘But when we came home in January my daydreams became very morbid and I constantly had visions of David in great pain, screaming in agony and us being unable to help.’
      • ‘In the beginning, I had visions of a fabulous, sweeping, Perspex spiral staircase, ignorant of the fact that this would cost about £35,000.’
      • ‘My sister, indolent and unimaginative as she was, had visions of endless touch-typing speed trials supervised by austere women under flickering striplights.’
      • ‘When she still hadn't reappeared later on this afternoon, I had visions of her having a supersized rocket strapped to her and her being launched skywards, a ball of singed fur and flame.’
      • ‘‘Volleyball was his life. He had trials for England and had visions of playing professionally,’ said his father.’
      • ‘I've had planters and hanging baskets crying out for plants but the weather has been so awful I had visions of all the little plants being washed away or pelted to death in the one or two hail storms we had.’
      • ‘My vision is to be able to take the thoughts and data from a dying brain and transfer them into another body without opening the skull.’
      • ‘Afterwards, I twitch nervously and experience flashing visions of her rolling her eyes and barking, ‘What business is it of yours?’’
      dream, daydream, reverie, mental picture, conceptualization
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  • 4A person or sight of unusual beauty.

    ‘madame was a vision in black velvet’
    • ‘Television floods our sight with visions of beauty and wealth, whether from America or Russia or Japan - wherever there is power.’
    • ‘She was a vision of beauty, almost as good looking as our Kyra.’
    • ‘And so the grand-stands make a brilliant and wonderful spectacle, a delirium of color, a vision of beauty.’
    • ‘And then the man appeared before them - a vision of beauty, he rose out of the river, more water creature than man.’
    • ‘It means that, whenever we choose, we can allow Best Mate to gallop through our unsullied memories, a vision whose beauty cannot be besmirched.’
    • ‘Just last night it was a vision of beauty awaiting Santa's arrival.’
    • ‘The pure white plumage was reflected perfectly - a shimmering vision of heavenly beauty.’
    • ‘The reef provides the vision of beauty; reef science supplies the theoretical links.’
    • ‘It's a delicate and yet demanding film, one that will reward the patient viewer with visions of beauty and despair.’
    • ‘Dressed in a long t-shirt and a pair of cut-offs, she was a vision of beauty.’
    • ‘He will be ever hovering in our collective soul - a white dove - a vision of beauty and purity.’
    • ‘A perfect vision of beauty, made everlasting by its creator so many countless years ago.’
    • ‘Yet how was I to walk right by dressed in such a brilliant blue and with such a vision of beauty on my arm?’
    • ‘It was said to be a vision of surreal beauty, though evil beyond a child's wildest dreams.’
    • ‘After all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature presents us with a vision of great beauty.’
    • ‘Having spent many happy days climbing and scrambling on this mountain I can think of scores of views that would present a majestic vision of natures beauty.’
    • ‘There are only so many times we can look at the directors vision of ideal beauty through a soft focus and not get annoyed.’
    • ‘Instead of piles of brown stew, we got visions of delight.’
    • ‘Instead, she comes on like a marketing course's dream graduate, a vision in pastel shades, from the pristine hair to the cream suit.’
    beautiful sight, vision of loveliness, feast for the eyes, pleasure to behold, delight, dream, beauty, spectacle, picture, joy, marvel, sensation
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verb

[with object]rare

  • Imagine.

    ‘we visioned a small lawn surrounded with a perfect tangle of trees’
    • ‘The ‘mock ‘attempts of suicide may be a similar form of fantasy, where the loved ones are visioned as standing around the hospital bed and they are finally able to realize how unbearable the pain of life was for us.’’
    • ‘Her stomach lurched as she visioned her father in that mess.’
    • ‘One chapter, darkly visioning Conrad's clinch with his dead ex-partner's mother, is remarkable and truly shocking.’
    • ‘He was visioning the scene at the airport with Vivian.’
    • ‘So I hit ‘play’ and filled the car with pipe music, visioning the brave sounds echoing about the hills.’

Origin

Middle English (denoting a supernatural apparition): via Old French from Latin visio(n-), from videre ‘to see’.

Pronunciation

vision

/ˈvɪʒ(ə)n/