Etymology

walleyed

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Today it means: Having eyes with a pale-coloured iris. Full definition →

Middle English wawil-eghed ← Old Norse vagl-eygr
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The story

  1. Old Norse · derived fromauga
  2. Old Norse · derived fromeygr
  3. Old Norse · derived fromvagl“speck or beam in the eye”
  4. Old Norse · derived fromvagl-eygr“having speckled eyes”
  5. Middle English · inherited fromwolden-eiged“having very light-colored eyes; having parti-colored eyes”
  6. Middle English · inherited fromwawil-eghed
  7. English todaywalleyed

Inherited from Middle English wawil-eghed, Middle English wolden-eiged (“having very light-colored eyes; having parti-colored eyes”), from Old Norse vagl-eygr (“having speckled eyes”), in turn from Old Norse vagl (“speck or beam in the eye”) (compare Icelandic vagl (“film over the eye”), Swedish vagel (“stye in the eye”)) and Old Norse eygr, from Old Norse auga, which is cognate to English eye.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.