eyesies

“Go to sleep, my darling, / Go to sleep, my pet, / Close your little eyesies, / All your cares forget.”

1902, Marshall Saunders, “A Lodge by the Sea”, in Beautiful Joe’s Paradise or The Island of Brotherly Love, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page and Company, page 115

“Hide your little eyesies.” He felt the pressure of her hand and she led him into the room. The clammy touch was gone. “Now you can look around.”

1923, [Homer Croy], chapter XXI, in West of the Water Tower, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, page 324

We saw them with our own little eyesies yesterday but didn’t ever expect we’d see the day when a major college stadium offered such rare ducats for public purchase.

1941 October 24, R. A. Lofstrom, “Right and Left in Sports”, in The St. Cloud Daily Times, eightieth year, number 113, St. Cloud, Minn., section “Along the Sports Trail”, page nine, column 1

And he looked up at me with those eyesies of his.

1984, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, translated by Lanford Wilson, Three Sisters, Smith and Kraus, →ISBN, page 45

“Oh Olympio, my little teddy bear, darling, honey baby, sweetie pie, let me kiss your eyesies, lovey dovey bunny buns, let me make you happy PLEEEASE!”

1995, Plautus, “Casina”, in Robert Wind, transl., Three Comedies, Lanham, Md.; New York, N.Y.; London: University Press of America, →ISBN, page 173

But when he looked her way she was taking a break and the guy she was playing eyesies with was the bull[-]necked bouncer.

1957, “The Great Cross-Country Girl Hunt”, in Glamour Photography, section “How to Make the Kill”, page 7, column 2

Don’t play eyesies with him, causing him to upset the coffee. Be demure and turn away your eyes, it says here.

1960, Marc Spinelli, Beauty and the Beast, Prentice-Hall, Inc., page 144

At length, I settled down at the end of a check-in counter, ordered a vodka-soda, and began playing eyesies with a barmaid on the other side of the counter. […] Having convinced myself she was really a hooker willing to play eyesies with any guy with enough scratch, I pray she grabbed some Texas entrepreneur or NFL executive for five big ones.

1979 October, Frederick Exley, “‘A Fan’s Notes’ Goes to Super Bowl XIII”, in Inside Sports, page 129, column 2

Have you ever found yourself playing “eyesies” with a girl on a bus or at a singles bar and thought, No, it can’t be. My fly must be open. She’s looking at someone in back of me. I remind her of her Uncle Harry. Wrong.

1984, Eric Weber, How to Win the Woman of Your Dreams: A Man’s Guide to Romance, Symphony Press, →ISBN, page 47

They didn’t miss a trick and even played games with the jurors. They would smile at them, nod to them and play eyesies with them, saying, “Hi, how are you doing today?”

1988, Denny McLain, Mike Nahrstedt, “The Trial”, in Strikeout: The Story of Denny McLain, St. Louis, Mo.: The Sporting News Publishing Co., →ISBN, page 185