"weak or unguarded aspect of a person or thing," c. 1600; see blind (adj.). As a verb, also blindside, "to hit from the blind side," attested from 1968, American English, in reference to U.S. football tackles.
slang for "drunk," 1736, sometimes said to be from notion of a ship heavy-laden and so low in the water that small waves (half seas) wash over the deck. This suits the sense, but the phrase is not recorded in this alleged literal sense. Half seas over "halfway across the sea" is recorded from 1550s, however, and it was given a figurative extension to "halfway through a matter" by 1690s. What drunkenness is halfway to is not clear.
also colour-blindness, "incapacity for perceiving certain colors due to an absence or weakness of the sensation upon which the power of distinguishing them depends," 1844, the native word, used in England instead of French daltonisme (by 1828), after English chemist John Dalton (1766-1844), who published a description of it in 1794. From color (n.) + blindness.
The continental philosophers have named it Daltonism, a name which has been strongly objected to by almost every English writer who has discussed the subject, on the ground of the inexpediency and undesirableness of immortalizing the imperfections or personal peculiarities of celebrated men by title of this kind. ... The name "Color-Blindness," proposed by Sir D. Brewster, seems in every respect unexceptionable. [Littell's Living Age, vol. v, April 1845]
Noted as inexact (very few people who can see are blind to all color), "the term is applied with much laxity to any constitutional inability to discriminate between colours" [OED]. In figurative use, with reference to race or ethnicity, it is attested from 1866, American English. Related: color-blind (adj.), which is attested from 1854.
in the sports sense, 1879, originally in cricket, "taking three wickets on three consecutive deliveries;" extended to other sports c. 1909, especially ice hockey ("In an earlier contest we had handed Army a 6-2 defeat at West Point as Billy Sloane performed hockey's spectacular 'hat trick' by scoring three goals" ["Princeton Alumni Weekly," Feb. 10, 1941]). So called allegedly because it entitled the bowler to receive a hat from his club commemorating the feat (or entitled him to pass the hat for a cash collection), but the term probably has been influenced by the image of a conjurer pulling objects from his hat (an act attested by 1876). The term was used earlier for a different sort of magic trick:
Place a glass of liquor on the table, put a hat over it, and say, "I will engage to drink every drop of that liquor, and yet I'll not touch the hat." You then get under the table; and after giving three knocks, you make a noise with your mouth, as if you were swallowing the liquor. Then, getting from under the table, say "Now, gentlemen, be pleased to look." Some one, eager to see if you have drunk the liquor, will raise the hat; when you instantly take the glass and swallow the contents, saying, "Gentlemen I have fulfilled my promise: you are all witnesses that I did not touch the hat." ["Wit and Wisdom," London, 1860]
