eyeball

noun

1. 1

   The ball of the eye.

   Near-synonym: eye

   You'll change your mind about not bothering with safety glasses once you've injured your eyeball. That's called closing the barn door after the horse gets out.

   Goe make thy ſelfe like a Nymph o' th' Sea. Be ſubiect to no ſight but thine, and mine: inuisible To euery eye-ball elſe: goe take this ſhape, And hither come in't: goe: hence With diligence.

   Suddenly his eyeballs are glazed with tears. “Mom, can you come get me,” he pleads. “Yeah, ’cause I freaking hate it here.[…]”

2. 2

   An instance of eyeballing something.

   Give this report an eyeball, will you please?

3. 3

   informalSurveillance.

   Intelligence work is necessarily limited in scope by the capacity of national surveillance systems. […] Ultimately, it is only when you have an 'eyeball' or the electronic equivalent on a suspect that you have a reasonable chance of a preventive intervention.

4. 4

   A readership or viewership.

   We need compelling content for the new Web site so we can attract more eyeballs.

   When The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power debuted at the same time as House of the Dragon, much noise was made about which show attracted more eyeballs.

5. 5

   slangA face-to-face meeting.

   We had an eyeball last year.

6. 6

   A favourite or pet; the apple of someone's eye.

verb

1. 1

   informalTo gauge, estimate or judge by eye, rather than measuring precisely; to look or glance at.

   A good cook can often just eyeball the correct quantities of ingredients.

   Each geometric construction must be exact; eyeballing it and getting close does not count.

2. 2

   informalTo stare at intently.

   Are you eyeballing my girl?

3. 3

   To roll one's eyes.

   Guardiola strode on to the pitch at half-time to remonstrate with the Spanish referee, Antonio Mateu Lahoz, but went too far with his eyeballing and matador-like hand movements. He was “upstairs”, in the Colin Bell stand, to watch Liverpool’s second-half turnaround and a dismal seven days for City take another turn for the worse.

Forms

plural

eyeballs

past tense

eyeballed

past participle

eyeballed

present participle

eyeballing

third person singular

eyeballs