bug-eyed, a. orig. U.S.
[f. bug v.2]
Having bulging eyes; esp. in phr. bug-eyed monster, an extra-terrestrial monster with bulging eyes; abbrev. B.E.M.
| 1922 H. L. Wilson Merton of Movies xi. 193 Kind of innocent and bug-eyed the way he'd rubber at things. 1943 R. Chandler Lady in Lake (1944) viii. 47 An angular bug-eyed man with a sad sick face. 1953 Koestler Trail of Dinosaur (1955) ii. 143 Young space cadets, for instance, dislike meeting Bems—for bug-eyed Monsters. 1957 P. Moore Science & Fiction 45 He was no dabbler in fiction of the bug-eyed monster and ray-gun type. 1958 New Scientist 18 Sept. 861/3 ‘Space opera’ and ‘BEM stories’ (Bug-Eyed Monsters). 1960 K. Amis New Maps of Hell ii. 44 In space-opera..Indians turn up in the revised form of what are technically known as bug-eyed monsters, a phrase often abbreviated to BEMs. 1960 C. Day Lewis Buried Day viii. 165 The bug-eyed, frantic immobility of a rabbit confronted by a stoat. |