ˈeyestring
[f. eye n.1 + string n.]
In pl. The strings (i.e. muscles, nerves, or tendons) of the eye. (The ‘eyestrings’ were formerly supposed to break or crack at death or loss of sight.)
| 1601 B. Jonson Poetaster Induct., Crack, eye-strings..let me be ever blind. 1607 Beaum. & Fl. Woman-hater ii. i, The last words that my dying father spake, Before his eye-strings brake. 1611 Shakes. Cymb. i. iii. 17, I would haue broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but To looke vpon him. 1639 Fuller Holy War ii. xxxix. (1647) 96 When once those eye-strings begin to break, the heart⁓strings hold not out long after. 1675 Hobbes Odyssey (1677) 108 All his eye-strings with the fire did strut. 1682 Otway Venice Preserved ii. i, Gaze on thee 'till my Eye⁓strings crackt with Love. 1707 Mortimer Husb. 178 See..that their [sheep's] Gums be red..the Eye-strings ruddy. 1776 Toplady Bk. Praise 159 When my eyestrings break in death. 1778 Arminian Mag. I. 268 His Eye-strings were broke, his Speech entirely gone. |