eyes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of eye.

   She rubbed her tired eyes after staring at the screen all day.

   The portrait's eyes seemed to follow visitors around the gallery.

   Note

   A regular -s plural that carries more than the organs themselves. In "she has green eyes" it describes the irises and their color, not anatomy. The visual sense also turns plural, as in "to my eyes," meaning "as I see it." The same spelling serves the verb of watching closely, and word order tells them apart: a verb follows its subject, as in "the guard eyes the door."

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of eye.

   The guard eyes every visitor with suspicion.

   A shopper eyes the discounted shoes before reaching for them.

   Note

   Nearly every modern use takes a direct object and implies appraisal or wanting, not mere seeing: she eyes the cake, the scout eyes the newcomer. Two quite different verbs share the spelling. One means cutting the buds from potatoes. The other means letting fish eggs develop until their dark eye spots show. An intransitive use meaning "appears" or "looks" is obsolete, so leave it to older texts.

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