apple of someone's eye
1
4.4
- idiom
:
la niña de mis ojos
- Ilya was the apple of Polina's eye.
Examples
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I was the apple of his eye.
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My brother was the apple of his eye.
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An only child, the apple of his eye.
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I was the apple of his eye.
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And I'm the apple of her eye.
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I'm the apple of his eye.
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And his wife, Dolly, well, she was the apple of his eye.
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It didn't take a clairvoyant to realize that Pamela, blond, beautiful, and the apple of her parents' eyes, had grown up in a privileged world.
Fiction book (1995) -
As the youngest member of the family, she was truly the apple of her father's eye.
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To her grandparents, he has always been the apple of their eye, bringing them endless joy.
Synonyms
712
1.0
A person or thing you like more than others
151
3.2
A person many people admire or love too much
A person someone loves most and who makes them very happy
How Cherished
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'a person or thing cherished' is not predictably built from the literal meanings of 'apple' (a fruit) and 'eye' (an organ of sight), so a B1 learner who only knows the constituents would not infer the idiomatic sense. Although some languages have comparable idioms, this is a conventionalized historical metaphor in English and therefore functions as an opaque idiom requiring prior exposure.
Etymology
The idiom apple of someone's eye may come from a very old picture: people once called the dark round center of the eye an 'apple' because it looked like a small round fruit. Because that small part of the eye needed careful protection, calling someone the apple of your eye came to mean they are your most loved or 'cherished' person.