black eye
37
2.3
- noun
- /blæk aɪ/
:
ojo morado
- He got a black eye.
She kneed herself in the face and she had a black eye for two weeks.
- She kneed herself in the face and she had a black eye for two weeks.
- So he ended up giving me a black eye.
- She wakes up in the hospital and she's, she's, I think she's got a black eye or something like that.
- She'd be nursing a black eye and I would Just Dance in front of her and she'd just start cracking up.
- I thought you were saying, like, sounds like a black eye or that too.
Examples
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I'll be the girl with the black eye.
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Arthur Gayle, his black eye healed, stands ten feet away.
Fiction book (1993) -
My dad says I came out with a black eye.
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Why do you have a black eye?
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I notice that you have a black eye.
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You had a split lip and a black eye.
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A neighbor has reported that Mrs. Smith has a black eye.
Academic text (2012) -
Jenny looks at her black eye in a mirror, then leaves the apartment.
Fiction book (1994) -
At least you don't have a black eye from it.
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After the game, he came home with a black eye from a collision with another player.
Synonyms
How Severe
Surface Forms
Morphology
black + eye
The literal combination of 'black' + 'eye' evokes a visible bruise, and the figurative sense (damage to reputation) arises by metaphorical extension from a physical mark to a reputational one. This mapping is partly predictable from the constituents—learners can guess a negative or harmful sense—but the specific nuance of reputational harm rather than a physical injury is idiomatic enough to be only semi-transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun black eye comes from the dark bruise that appears around the eye after a hit. The words black and eye describe that dark, swollen mark, so the phrase means 'a bruise from an injury'.