crow's feet
4
5.1
- noun
- /kroʊz fiːt/
- Although the light was dim, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes were visible.
- crow's feet around her eyes
- crow's feet wrinkles
- crow's feet at the corners
Examples
-
Dean hadn't seen his old college buddy in many years, and he almost didn't recognize this grown, middle-aged man with the vanishing hairline and the crow's feet fanning out from his eyes.
Fiction book (1999) -
He noticed crow's feet beginning to form around his eyes as he smiled more in his later years.
-
Of course when you get older and get some crow's feet, I might lose interest.
-
Last week I discovered the early stages of crow's feet.
-
But in the eyes, which now had tiny crow's feet at their corners, the same consuming fire burned.
Fiction book (1993) -
His perfect face showed crow's feet around the eyes and a certain sagging below the chin that I had never seen before.
Fiction book (1992) -
You have crow's feet.
-
She smiled tightly, and a pattern of crow's feet radiated from the pinched corners of her eyes.
Fiction book (1997) -
As she laughed, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes deepened with each smile.
-
At her birthday party, her crow's feet became more prominent as she beamed with joy.
Synonyms
2
6.5
A small line at the outer corner of the eye that often appears with age or when you smile
1
3.5
A small wrinkle at the outer corner of the eye caused by smiling
Surface Forms
Morphology
crow's + feet
The phrase uses a visual metaphor: the lines radiating from the eye corner are compared to a bird's (crow's) feet. Knowing 'crow' and 'feet' gives a clue to a bird-foot-like shape but does not directly yield the specific sense 'wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes' without some cultural/idiomatic knowledge, and similar bird-foot idioms in other languages make it partially accessible.
Etymology
Crow's feet comes from the small lines that spread out from the eye and look like the thin toes of a bird, like a crow's feet. So crow's feet means 'wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes', often from smiling or getting older.