black-eyed, a.
[black a. 18.]
1. Having black eyes. Cf. black eye 1.
| 1598 Chapman Iliad i. p. 4 Nor will containe..his heauie hand before: The blacke eyde virgin be releast. a 1667 Cowley Lover's Chron. ix, Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid. 1775 Sheridan Duenna i. v, Egad, a very pretty black-eyed girl! |
b. spec. Of a variety of pea: having a black speck.
| 1728 W. Byrd Hist. Dividing Line in Writings (1901) 74 Each Cell [of N.C. pine cone] contains a Seed of the Size and Figure of a black-ey'd Pea. 1786 Washington Diaries (1925) III. 56 They proceeded to sow the small black eyed pea. 1857 Texas Almanac 13 Plant Black-Eyed..Peas. 1862 Chambers's Encycl. s.v. Dolichos, D. sphaerospermus (Calavana or Black-eyed Pea), a native of the West Indies. |
2. black-eyed Susan: a. A name applied to various plants having pale flowers with dark centres, esp. Thunbergia alata and Rudbeckia hirta.
| 1891 Cent. Dict. s.v. Thunbergia, The hardy annual T. alata, known locally by the name black-eyed Susan from its buff, orange, or white flowers with a purplish black center. 1900 C. Bennett in W. D. Drury Bk. Gardening xv. 696 T. alata, with a buff-yellow corolla, and a very dark eye nearly approaching black (hence the common name Black-eyed Susan). 1906 H. D. Pittman Belle of Blue Grass C. xvi. 241, I found all of the waste places now covered with black-eyed susans. 1956 A. M. Coats Flowers & their Histories 226 ‘Black-eyed Susan’ (the annual R. hirta) immigrated in 1714. |
b. U.S. slang. (See quots.)
| 1869 in M. Mathews Beginnings Amer. Eng. (1931) 153 Among names of revolvers I remember the following: Meat in the Pot,..Black-eyed Susan. 1888 Farmer Americanisms, Black-eyed Susan.—Texan for a revolver. |