Meanings
- not comparableHaving eyes.
The familiar hatchery practice of agitating the eggs after they are eyed, called shocking or addling, ruptures the yolk membranes of the ever-tender sterile eggs. The result is a precipitation of the globulin and a whitening of the egg.
1980, Earl Leitritz with Robert C[onklin] Lewis, Trout and Salmon Culture (Hatchery Methods) [California Fish Bulletin; 164], Oakland, Calif.: University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, →ISBN, page 24 - not comparableHaving eye-like spots.
The back of the beetle was eyed to make it appear to be a snake to a predator.
- in compoundsnot comparableHaving the specified kind or number of eyes.
Three victims in chains—and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.
1960, Elie Wiesel, translated by Stella Rodway, Night, New York: Bantam, published 1986, page 614 more examples
What mean you, sir, / To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep; / And I, an ass, am onion-eyed: for shame, / Transform us not to women.
c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]Unseen descending weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers, / And court the fair eyed dew to take me to her shining tent.
1789, William Blake, The Book of Thel, II, lines 55-6That she had all the abstracted and nervous manner of one who is on the eve of some bold and hazardous step, which it has required no common struggle to resolve upon, would have been obvious to the lynx-eyed Fagin […]
1838, Charles Dickens, chapter 39, in Oliver TwistGray and blue-eyed parents will tend to have either gray-eyed children only or an equal number of gray- and of blue-eyed children according as the gray-eyed parent is homozygous or heterozygous.
1901 November 7, Gertrude C. Davenport and Charles C. Davenport, “Heredity of Eye-color in Man”, in Science, New Series, MacMillan, Volume 26, Number 670, page 592
- participlepastsimple past and past participle of eye
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectivehaving an eye or eyes or eyelike feature especially as specified; often used in combination
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englisheyed
- Englisheyed
From Middle English eyed, eied, iȝed, y-yȝed, equivalent to eye + -ed.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with eyed
Sounds the same
Anagrams
Cite this entry
eyed. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eyed
“eyed.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eyed. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “eyed,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/eyed.
Source: eyed on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.