eye lock

A form of eyelock — An occurrence of mutual staring, where each person gazes fixedly into the other's eyes.

Meanings

nouneye lock (countable and uncountable, plural eye locks)

plural eye locks

  1. alternativecountableuncountableAlternative form of eyelock.

    You walk by the guy, smile, give him a good “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” eye lock, and keep walking.

    2013, Jess McCann, You Lost Him at Hello
    3 more examples

    Glancing over the crowd as if looking for someone there, his piercing gaze caught my eye. With that one casual eye lock, I would have expected violins to begin to play and all motion to be suspended while I tried to catch my breath.

    2007, Betty J. Reynolds, Louisiana Coffee ... with Lots of Cream: A Creole Family Memoir

    There are also people who maintain rigid eye lock not from an attitude of openness and interest or from any attempt to appear open and interested but as an aggressive and narcissistic show of dominance.

    2014, Sam Harris, Waking Up: Searching for Spirituality Without Religion, page 164

    I gave Gillian and Jack a few special gazes into each other's eyes and some internal dialogue to go with the eye locks, but my thoughts kept going back to the conversation I'd had with Inspector Jamieson regarding Vicki.

    2014, Hannah Reed, Off Kilter, page 228
Cite this entry
APA

eye lock. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eye%20lock

MLA

“eye lock.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eye%20lock. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “eye lock,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eye%20lock.

Source: eye lock on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.