saccade

plural saccades

1. engineeringA rapid movement of the eye (either voluntary or involuntary) from one focus to another. (Often described as a jerky movement, but this word denotes all such quick eye movements, which happen continually, not just exaggerated or weird ones, and not nystagmus.)

   He added the bill with a single saccade of his pulsing eyes.

   1993, Will Self, My Idea of Fun

   2 more examples

   Then 130 milliseconds or thousandths of a second later, each made a "saccade" - an extremely fast eye movement - to roughly where the ball was likely to bounce.

   2000 November 21, Tim Radford, The Guardian

   He paused, looking at me intently, his black-flecked eyes scanning my face in quick saccades.

   2019, Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me, Jonathan Cape, page 23

2. The act of checking a horse quickly with a single strong pull of the reins.
3. entertainmentThe sounding of two violin strings together by using a sudden strong pressure of the bow.
4. rareAny sudden jerking movement.

present singular third person saccades · participle present saccading · participle past saccaded · past saccaded

1. intransitiveTo make a rapid jerking movement to focus elsewhere.