saucer eye
Usually pl.
a. An eye as large and round as a saucer, formerly freq. ascribed to spectres and ghosts. Cf. saucer n. 4.
| 1664 Butler Hud. ii. i. 131 Some have mistaken Blocks and Posts, For Spectres, Apparitions, Ghosts, With Sawcer⁓eyes, and Horns. 1718 Prior Hans Carvel 77 The devil..without saucer-eye or claw Like a grave Barrister at Law. 1808 Wolcot (P. Pindar) One more Peep at Roy. Acad. Wks. 1812 V. 371 With mealy face and saucer eyes. 1837 Barham Ingol. Leg., Spectre of Tappington, Don't suppose you can palm off your saucer eyes on me. 1846 C. Boner tr. Andersen's Danish Story-bk. K 6 b, He struck the flint, and the well-known dog with saucer-eyes stood before him. 1970 ‘D. Halliday’ Dolly & Cookie Bird vi. 78 She still had the huge saucer eyes I remembered, with false eyelashes and then spikes drawn in under the lashes. 1976 G. Moffat Short Time to Live v. 48 ‘This is the astonishing thing—’ she turned to Miss Pink with saucer eyes. |
b. transf.
| 1849 De Quincey Eng. Mail-Coach Wks. 1862 IV. 326 The huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing through the gloom. |
So saucer-eyed a., having saucer eyes; also transf., of an expression, emotion, etc.
In quot. 1968 the sense is ‘susceptible to seeing flying saucers’.
| 1622 Massinger & Dekker Virg. Mart. iii. iii, Clouen footed, Blacke, saucer-eyde, his nostrils breathing fire. 1843 Ainsworth's Mag. IV. 5 The frightful, open-mouthed, saucer-eyed expression of wonder. 1883 T. Hardy in Longm. Mag. July 268 A thin saucer-eyed woman of fifty-five. 1934 A. Woollcott While Rome Burns 57 He rushed at me in saucer-eyed excitement. 1968 Listener 27 June 823/1 As if people haven't tended in such matters to see the expected thing in the expected form, as if they were unlikely to go saucer-eyed to their vigils. 1978 J. Irving World According to Garp xvii. 361 Garp looked for the strange saucer-eyed girl. 1979 N. Freeling Widow xvii. 108 I've been shot at... Don't look so saucer-eyed..don't let's dramatize. |