crow's foot
- noun
- /kroʊz fʊt/
:
pata de gallo
- After years of laughter and sunshine, he embraced the crow's feet that showed a life well lived.
Examples
-
Tiny lines had begun to form in crow's feet at the corners of his eyes; otherwise, his face was as smooth as a baby's, giving him a youthful appearance that he did not merit.
Fiction book (1998) -
Many people develop crow's feet as they age, which can be a sign of wisdom and experience.
-
As she got older, she noticed crow's feet forming at the outer corners of her eyes when she smiled.
Synonyms
4
5.1
Wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes that appear from smiling or getting older
1
3.5
A small wrinkle at the outer corner of the eye caused by smiling
How Noticeable
1
3.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
crow's + foot
The phrase compares the radiating lines at the eye corner to the splayed toes of a bird’s foot, so there is a visible metaphorical link between ‘crow’ + ‘foot’ and a shape of wrinkle. However, the specific meaning ‘wrinkle at the outer corner of the eye’ is a conventionalized metaphor that is not directly literal, so learners may only partially infer it (though many languages use a similar bird-foot metaphor), making it only partially predictable.
Etymology
Crow's foot comes from the way the short lines beside the eye look like a little crow foot with thin toes. These lines appear when you smile or as you get older, so the name means 'a wrinkle at the outer corner of the eye'.