eagle eye
- noun
- /ˈiːɡl aɪ/
- Informal
- With her eagle eye, she quickly identified the inconsistencies in the data.
- keep an eagle eye
And you're just you're watching, you're watching what they do with a eagle eye.
- And you're just you're watching, you're watching what they do with a eagle eye.
Examples
-
He praised the eagle eye of the illustrator who caught every shift of fashion as soon as it occurred.
Academic text (1997) -
Anyway, how did you escape Mom's eagle eye?
Fiction book (2000) -
I'd start by keeping an eagle eye on him, that's for sure.
-
Nina, the youngest, has an eagle eye.
Blog text (22) -
I already have to keep an eagle eye on any pharmacists I interact with when I try to pick up a certain prescription.
Blog text (13) -
My amazing mother-in-law, however, always watchful around birthday times and aware of my absolutely consuming passion for all things ancient Egyptian, spotted the advertisement with her eagle eye and bought Michael and me two tickets to the exhibit.
Blog text (5) -
To find the missing document, you will need an eagle eye for detail.
-
The editor has an eagle eye for spotting errors in the manuscript.
Synonyms
The skill of noticing small details and what looks good
How well you can see with your eyes
A strong ability to notice small things and work very carefully
An ability to notice small details that others miss
Ability to see small details clearly
The ability to notice and understand things quickly and clearly
The sharpness of your sight that lets you see small details
Noticing small details and understanding what they mean
Being quick to notice small details and other people's feelings
A quick ability to notice and understand things
An ability to notice and remember what you see very clearly
The ability to notice small details by paying attention
Antonyms
A condition in which a person cannot see because of injury, disease, or being born that way
How Observant
- Informal
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the constituents: 'eagle' evokes very keen vision and 'eye' refers to seeing, so 'eagle eye' straightforwardly conveys an exceptional ability to notice details. This animal-vision metaphor is common and transparent across languages and follows a regular noun–noun compounding pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both words would likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The noun eagle eye comes from the bird eagle and its very sharp eye. Because eagles can see small things from far away, the phrase means 'to notice details'.