half an eye
- idiom
- Informal
:
echar un ojo
- She picked it up, keeping half an eye on the windows.
- keep half an eye
Examples
-
You can see with half an eye that the match is going poorly for the home team.
-
By keeping at least half an eye on Paris.
-
Anyone with half an eye would see that something was missing.
Fiction book (1995) -
Here am I with only half an eye, collecting arrows.
-
"Anyone with half an eye was what she meant—anyone but her mother, now preening in front of the clouded antique mirror at the prospect of receiving such a distinguished visitor.
Fiction book (1995) -
Anyone with half an eye would notice the changes in the company's policy.
-
He kept half an eye on the children while reading his book.
Synonyms
299
1.5
To look quickly at someone or something
To look quickly at something
Antonyms
How Observant
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'notices or understands something with minimal attention' is directly inferable from combining 'half' (partial, not complete) with 'eye' (seeing/attention), so the composite evokes partial or limited attention. The indefinite article 'an' is merely grammatical and the vision=attention metaphor is common cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely grasp the expression.
Etymology
Half an eye may come from the image of keeping one eye only half open and taking a quick, small look. So, to see something with half an eye means to 'notice with little attention'.