an eye for an eye
20
5.1
- idiom
- Informal
- "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."
- an eye for an eye, a tooth
- an eye for an eye; that's justice
Loading YouTube…
Watch on YouTubeAnd so human sacrifice, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, petty revenge, killing people from breaking the Sabbath, all that kind of thing.
- And so human sacrifice, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, petty revenge, killing people from breaking the Sabbath, all that kind of thing.
Examples
-
As the scripture says, an eye for an eye.
-
An eye for an eye.
-
I believe in an eye for an eye.
-
It's only an eye for an eye.
-
Take an eye for an eye!
-
"We're not allowed an eye for an eye."
Blog text (20) -
Just like it says in the Bible, man, an eye for an eye.
-
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
-
People use the Biblical verse "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" as an excuse for revenge.
Blog text (28) -
Many believe that the principle of an eye for an eye is outdated and leads to endless cycles of revenge.
Synonyms
164
6.8
Punishing someone in return for a wrong done to you
112
5.2
Harming someone because they hurt you
91
5.5
Harming someone to punish them for something they did
80
7.5
Punishment people give because someone did something wrong and others think it is fair
34
8.3
An action that hurts someone in return for an attack
18
5.8
An action done to hurt someone because they hurt you
2
5.9
To punish someone in the same way they hurt another person
1
9.9
A rule that a punishment is equal to the crime, like 'an eye for an eye'
1
7.4
To try to hurt someone because they hurt you
1
9.9
A punishment someone gets because of a wrong they did
Hurting someone in the same way they hurt another person, for example an eye for an eye
Antonyms
How Punitive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally frames a one-for-one exchange—'an eye' given 'for' an 'eye'—so a learner who knows 'eye' and the preposition 'for' can infer the idea of equal retaliation or equivalent punishment. This reciprocity logic is cross-linguistically common (lex talionis) and the meaning is compositionally derivable rather than arbitrarily idiomatic, making it accessible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
An eye for an eye comes from very old laws that tried to make punishments equal to the crime. If someone hurt another person's eye, the law said the guilty person should lose an eye in return, so the phrase now means 'punish in the same way'.