[Note: This entry also incorporates the former entry blarey-eyed.]
blare-eyed adj Also blar(e)y-eyed [Prob from earlier blare(y)-eyed as var of blear(y)-eyed, reinterpreted on the basis of blare v 3 or 4; cf quot 1836 below , where the sense ‘blear-eyed’ seems likely, and OED2 blear-eyed adj. 1, quot 1562] chiefly Sth Cf blare-eyed herring n
Having wide-open, bulging, or otherwise prominent eyes; also fig.
[1836 S. Pioneer & Philadelphia Liberalist 5.376, Bumpy faced, bottle-nosed, blare-eyed, bloated swearers. This variety is numerous, and to be found in every place and situation.] 1913 Atlanta Constitution (GA) 23 Feb [52]/6 (newspaperarchive.com), She has made two continents sit up and take blare eyed notice of her performances both on and off the boards. 1931 Faulkner in Scribner’s Mag. 89.587 MS, It was a big cloud of it [=dust], and them blare-eyed, spotted things swoaring outen it twenty foot to a jump. . . Then the dust settled and there they was, that Texas man and the horse. 1934 Burnet Bulletin (TX) [1 Mar 3]/4 (newspaperarchive.com), Here we are “blare-eyed,” full of good eats, and not drawing any of your old relief funds and projects with which to look fat and pretty. 1935 Bluefield Daily Telegraph (WV) 10 Aug 3/2, Here is one that will make the nimrods blarey-eyed, but the wild animal editor can’t tell all about it—out of season. The other day . . Rex Wiley, of Norton . . , scared up an old mother pheasant with her family of twenty-one. 1939 Prairie Schooner 13.142 MS, She didn’t seem to mind the March winds . . , but, head thrust forward and thick spectacle lenses redoubling her eyes, sat stolidly between a bulky croker sack on one side and a black bag on the other, like some blary-eyed bird that had lost its neck feathers. 1966–70 DARE (Qu. X21a, What words are used to describe people according to their eyes—for example, if they stick out?) Inf MS23, Blare-eyed; (Qu. X26b, If a person’s eyes look in different directions, looking outward, he’s _____) Inf NY236, [blærɪ]-eyed [Inf Black]. 1981 NADS Letters neLA, I have experienced an angry blare-eyed man with a rifle, because I did not survey to suit him. 1990 Sandusky Reg. (OH) 17 July sec A 4/3 TX, The term “campaign promise” is universally used as a synonym for a bald-faced, blare-eyed lie.