eye

Bright lights really hurt my eyes.

To vvhat, my loue, ſhall I compare thine eyne? / Chriſtall is muddy.

c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

Were it to search the furthest Northern clime / Where frosty Hyems with an ycie Mace / Strikes dead all living things, Ide find it out, / And borrowing fire from those fayre sunny eyne / Thaw Winters frost and warme that dead cold clime: […]

Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine / Like a fiend’s hope upon his lips and eyne, / He said, and the persuasion of that sneer / Rallied his trembling comrades— […]

1817 December, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Revolt of Islam. […]”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], volume I, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 361:

It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a telescope.

1859 November 24, Charles Darwin, “Difficulties on Theory”, in On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 188:

She was like a Beardsley Salome, he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry.

1921, Ben Travers, chapter I, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

[H]is eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue.

1963, Margery Allingham, chapter XVII, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages.

2013 July-August, Fenella Saunders, “Tiny Lenses See the Big Picture”, in American Scientist, archived from the original on 2013-09-07:

An organ through which animals see (“perceive surroundings via light”).

The car was quite pleasing to the eye, but impractical.

Brown, blue, green, hazel eyes.

Natalie’s brown eyes looked into Jim’s blue eyes, and the girl and boy flirted.

The iris of the eye, being of a specified colour.

That dress caught her eye.

In the eyes of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke the apotheosis of the Celebrity was complete. The people of Asquith were not only willing to attend the house-warming, but had been worked up to the pitch of eagerness. The Celebrity as a matter of course was master of ceremonies.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

He has an eye for talent.

Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

The ability to notice what others might miss.

She was giving him the eye at the bar.

When the car cut her off, she gave him the eye.

Far more annoying were the letters from parents of missing daughters and the private detectives who had begun showing up at his door. Independently of each other, the Cigrand and Conner families had hired “eyes” to search for their missing daughters.

2003, Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Random House, →ISBN, page 199:

A hole at the blunt end of a needle through which thread is passed.

[H]e struck the Duffer a sharp blow on the back of the head with the eye of the axe, and left him stunned and senseless on the earth[.]

1856 October 18, The People’s Advocate and New South Wales Vindicator, Sydney, N.S.W., page 6, column 1:

The oval hole of an axehead through which the axehandle is fitted.

en:loop or hole to receive hook or line, as a fitting added

A fitting consisting of a loop of metal or other material, suitable for receiving a hook or the passage of a cord or line.

en:loop or hole to receive hook or line, and integral with whole

A loop forming part of anything, or a hole through anything, to receive a hook, pin, rope, shaft, etc.; for example, at the end of a tie bar in a bridge truss, through a crank, at the end of a rope, or through a millstone.

The relatively calm and clear centre of a hurricane or other cyclonic storm.

A mark on an animal, such as a butterfly or peacock, resembling a human eye.

(informal) The dark brown centre of a black-eyed Susan flower.

the very eye of that proverb

1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts

1671, John Milton, “(please specify the page)”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC:

That which resembles the eye in relative beauty or importance.

Red vvith an Eye of Blevv, makes a Purple; and by theſe ſimple Compoſitions again Compounded among themſelves, the Skilful Painter can produce vvhat kind of Colour he pleaſes, and a great many more than vve have yet Names for.

1664, Robert Boyle, “Experiment XII”, in Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours. […], London: […] Henry Herringman […], →OCLC, part III (Containing Promiscuous Experiments about Colours), page 220:

One of the holes in certain kinds of cheese.

(architecture) The circle in the centre of a volute.

(nautical, in the plural) The foremost part of a ship's bows; the hawseholes.

The “e” was a bit over-inked, with a blacked-out eye.

2022, Hernan Diaz, Trust, Picador (2023):

(typography) The enclosed counter (“negative space”) of the lower-case letter e.

(go) An empty point or group of points surrounded by one player's stones.

This victory will make us great in the eyes of the world.

en-noun

eye (plural eyes or (archaic or dialectal) eyen or (archaic) eyne)

eyes (plural)
eyen (archaic dialectal plural)
eyne (archaic plural)

an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind

better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick

better than a poke in the eye with a rusty nail

better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick

better than a poke in the eye with a shitty stick

eye movement desensitization and reprocessing

it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God

it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye

Sranan Tongo: ai

oog

ability to notice what others might miss

དཀྱིལ

dark brown center of a black-eyed Susan flower

From Middle English eye, eie, yë, eighe, eyghe, yȝe, eyȝe, from Old English ēage (“eye”), from Proto-West Germanic *augā, from Proto-Germanic *augô (“eye”) (compare Scots ee, West Frisian each, Dutch oog, German Auge, Danish øje, Norwegian Bokmål øye, Norwegian Nynorsk auga, Swedish öga), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃okʷ-, *h₃ekʷ- (“eye; to see”).
Other Indo-European cognates include Latin oculus (whence English oculus), Lithuanian aki̇̀s, Old Church Slavonic око (oko), Albanian sy, Ancient Greek ὄψ (óps, “(poetic) eye; face”) and ὄσσε (ósse, “eyes”), Armenian ակն (akn), Avestan 𐬀𐬱𐬌 (aši, “eyes”), Sanskrit अक्षि (ákṣi). Related to ogle.
The uncommon plural form eyen is from Middle English eyen, from Old English ēaġan, nominative and accusative plural of ēaġe (“eye”).

cog

Ancient Greek ὄψ (óps, “(poetic) eye; face”)


eye

After eyeing the document for half an hour, she decided not to sign it.

They went out and eyed the new car one last time before deciding.

Each downcast monk in silence takes / His place a newmade grave around, / Each one his brother sadly eying.

1859, Fraser’s Magazine, volume 60, page 671:

(transitive) To carefully or appraisingly observe (someone or something).

My becomings kill me, when they do not eye well to you.

c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

(intransitive, obsolete) To appear; to look.

Once the potatoes have been rumbled they require 'eyeing' with a turning knife or hand peeler.

1996, Food Preparation and Cooking, page 418:

My first assignment was eyeing old potatoes. The Siegler brothers would buy potatoes so old they looked like an octopus. My job was to make them look presentable and, of course, sellable.

2012, Bob Vargovcik, Bayonne Boy, page 19:

(transitive) To remove the reproductive buds from (potatoes).

Eggs were collected from the Taylor Creek, Upper Truckee River, and Blackwood Creek traps and transported to this station to be eyed […]

1927, Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly of the Forty-Seventh Session of the Legislature of the State of California:

(transitive) To allow (fish eggs) to develop so that the black eye spots are visible.

en-verb

eye (third-person singular simple present eyes, present participle eyeing or eying, simple past and past participle eyed)

eyes (present singular third-person)
eyeing (participle present)
eying (participle present)
eyed (participle past)
eyed (past)


eye

It said, in a whispering, buzzing voice, "Gee-you-ess-ess-ay-dash-em-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-em-eye-en-gee-oh-dash-pee-eye-pee-dash-pee-ee-ar-ar-wye-dash-pee-eye-en-gee-oh."

2004, Will Rogers, The Stonking Steps, page 170:

IED [is spoken] as "eye-ee-dee" instead of "I SPELL India Echo Delta Romeo".

2016 CCEB, Communications Instructions Radiotelephone Procedures: ACP125 (G), pages 3–5

The name of the Latin-script letter I/i.


eye

an eye of pheasants

Probably from rebracketing of a nye as an eye.