Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
beady-eyed

beady-eyed

2 7.4
Having small round shiny eyes that look suspicious
  • adjective
  • /ˈbiːdi aɪd/
translation icon : de ojos brillantes
  • Griffin and his beady-eyed friend were waiting for me when I got home.
  • little beady-eyed

Examples

  • This is a business man, a shifty, beady eyed, snaky, evil, ruthless, heartless, scandalous son of a bitch bastard devil himself.

    Big Money Hustlas (2000)

  • The beady-eyed rodent stood at the pavement's edge; its little heart beating faster than normal, whiskers twitching and feeling the sense of the air as large bodies passed by at differing rates.

    Blog text (10)

  • A girl I'll call Erica stared at me, beady-eyed and silent, for the whole four weeks.

    Academic text (2011)

  • She could picture him, leaning back in his office chair, balding and overweight, slack-jawed and beady-eyed, with no brains to speak of.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • There are 13,000 lakes in Michigan, and I don't mean to lose mine to some mealy-mouthed, beady-eyed, muck-gobbling turtle.

    Blog text (2)

  • I knew that old beady-eyed Russell Thomas was up to no good!

  • A girl I'll call Erica stared at me, beady-eyed and silent, for the whole four weeks.

Synonyms

beady
vsbeady-eyed
13 5.1

Having small round shiny eyes that look watchful

suggests a more suspicious or malicious attitude in the gaze
shifty-eyed
vsbeady-eyed
1 8.2

A person who looks nervous and like they want to hide something

is a small round gleam that implies suspicion rather than nervousness
squint-eyed
vsbeady-eyed
8.1

Looking to one side in a way that shows doubt or envy

focuses on small round shining eyes that imply alert suspicion

How Alert

sharp-eyed
3 4.1
beady-eyed
2 7.4
sleepy-eyed
1 4.0

Surface Forms

beady-eyed positive

Morphology

beady-eyed = beady (semi-transparent) = bead + eye + ed

The word 'beady' is derived from 'bead', and 'eyed' suggests having eyes like beads, but the specific connotation of suspicion or alertness is not directly derivable.

Etymology

Beady-eyed comes from the word bead, a 'small, round object', with -y meaning 'like', plus eye, so it literally means eyes that look like little beads. So, because beads are small and shiny, beady-eyed suggests small, bright, watchful eyes that can seem suspicious or sharp.