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English (UK)
Cambridge Dictionary Online

Meaning of eye in English

eye
noun [ C ]
uk
/aɪ/ us
/aɪ/

eye noun [C] (BODY PART)

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A1
one of the two organs in your face that are used for seeing:
He has no sight in his left eye.
She's got beautiful green eyes.
He closed his eyes and went to sleep.
 
PeopleImages/DigitalVision/GettyImages
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SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
The eye & surrounding area
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eye noun [C] (PLANT)

a dark spot on a potato or similar plant part, from which a new stem and leaves will grow
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
New growth in plants
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eye noun [C] (HOLE)

the hole in a needle through which you put the thread
 
Neil Overy/Photolibrary/GettyImages
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Knitting & sewing
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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Idioms

all eyes are on someone/something
an eye for an eye (and a tooth for a tooth)
as far as the eye can/could see
be all eyes
be more to something than meets the eye
be one in the eye for someone
be up to your eyes in something
before your very eyes
clap/lay/set eyes on someone/something
someone's eyes are bigger than their belly/stomach
More idioms
eye on the prize
have an eye for something
have your eye on someone/something
have eyes on someone/something
have an eye to/for the main chance
have eyes in the back of your head
in someone's eyes
keep your eye in
keep your/an eye on something/someone
keep your eye on the ball
keep your/an eye out for someone/something
keep your eyes open for someone/something
keep your eyes peeled/skinned
make eyes at someone
not take your eyes off someone/something
only have eyes for someone
roll your eyes
take your eye off the ball
to my eye
with your eyes open
with your eyes closed/shut
eye
verb [ T ]
uk
/aɪ/ us
/aɪ/
present participle eyeing or eying | past tense and past participle eyed
to look at someone or something with interest:
I could see her eyeing my lunch.
She eyed me warily.
Synonym
eyeball informal
SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases
Using the eyes
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Phrasal verbs

eye someone up
eye something up
(Definition of eye from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

eye | American Dictionary

eye
noun [ C ]
us
/ɑɪ/
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one of the pair of organs of seeing in the faces of humans and animals:
She has green eyes.
The eye of a needle is the hole through which you put the thread.

Idioms

an eye for an eye
cannot take your eyes off someone/something
eye
verb [ T ]
us
/ɑɪ/
present participle eyeing | past tense and past participle eyed
to look closely at someone or something:
She eyed the other passengers .
(Definition of eye from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

eye | Business English

eye
noun [ C ]
uk
/aɪ/ us
be the eyes and ears of sb/sth (also be sb's/sth's eyes and ears)
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to help a person or organization by telling them about important events or changes that might affect their particular industry or activity:
Corporate brokers are supposed to act as a company's eyes and ears in the marketplace.
New security measures are calling on all airport and airline employees to become the "eyes and ears" of the airport and report all suspicious activity
(Definition of eye from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of eye

eye
The oboe, on the other hand, offers very little for the eye, though some players attempt to compensate for this with grand gestures.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Ordinary image recognition techniques are applied to the video frames to find the eye, the position of eyelids and the centre of the pupil.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
In a separate session, the orientations of the gratings were reversed so that each eye viewed each orientation in a counterbalanced design.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The author suggested that this animal might have recovered normal eye alignment.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
To reduce the risk of error of measurement due to undetected eye movements, we preferentially sampled cells with receptive field outside the area centralis.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Firing patterns of neurons in abducens nucleus and surrounding medulla and their relation to eye movements.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
It provides a focal point for the viewer, leading the eye and telling it where to rest.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
If the sight of it and similar hieroglyphics offends your eye, then this is not the book for you.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
It takes that sort of time for things that are under your eyes to become disposable within culture.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
In these cases, strong responses differ substantially in measured amplitude in a way that is most readily explained as the result of eye-movements.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Thus is the eye trained to see similarities and differences.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
The tests were carried out as the last of a battery of eye-movement tasks, including smooth pursuit and prosaccade tasks.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Fish were transferred serially such that eyes could be sampled after periods of 0, 2, 5, 10, and 20 days of exposure.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
It is however unclear how and why eye movements would depend on spatial frequency and contrast in order to account for the observed results.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
Additionally, in related utterances, the adults spoke directly to the child as evidenced by their chosen words, eye gaze, body orientation, and gestures.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
See all examples of eye
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations with eye

eye

These are words often used in combination with eye.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

almond-shaped eyes
He was grey, with beautiful almond-shaped eyes and small aquiline nose always red due to a cold.
From the Cambridge English Corpus
amber eyes
He has long straight black hair and amber eyes.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
beady eye
I hope that some peer will get his beady eye on that language and find some other way of achieving the same purpose.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
See all collocations with eye
What is the pronunciation of eye?
 

Translations of eye

in Chinese (Traditional)
身體器官, 眼睛, 植物…
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in Chinese (Simplified)
身体器官, 眼睛, 植物…
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in Spanish
ojo, mirar, ojo [masculine]…
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in Portuguese
olho, buraco, (da agulha)…
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in more languages
in Marathi
in Japanese
in Turkish
in French
in Catalan
in Dutch
in Tamil
in Hindi
in Gujarati
in Danish
in Swedish
in Malay
in German
in Norwegian
in Urdu
in Ukrainian
in Bengali
in Czech
in Indonesian
in Thai
in Vietnamese
in Polish
in Korean
in Italian
डोळा…
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目, 針の穴, ～を（好奇心を持って）見る…
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göz, iğne deliği, süzmek…
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œil, chas, oeil…
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ull, mirar…
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oog, bekijken…
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பார்ப்பதற்குப் பயன்படுத்தப்படும் உங்கள் முகத்தில் உள்ள இரண்டு உறுப்புகளில் ஒன்று…
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आँख…
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આંખ…
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øje, nåleøje, -øje…
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öga, [nåls]öga, ögla…
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mata, lubang, keahlian menilai…
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das Auge, das Öhr, die Öse…
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øye [neuter], øye, hekte…
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آنکھ…
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око, вушко (голки), вічко…
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চোখ, নয়ন…
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oko, očko, ouško…
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mata, lubang, keahlian menilai…
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ดวงตา, รูเข็ม, ห่วง…
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mắt, lỗ, cách nhìn nhận…
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oko, ucho (igielne ), przyglądać się…
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눈, 바늘귀, 쳐다보다…
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occhio, cruna, guardare…
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Word of the Day

overwhelmed

UK
/ˌəʊ.vəˈwelm/
US
/ˌoʊ.vɚˈwelm/

past simple and past participle of overwhelm

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