eyes in the back of one's head
- idiom
- Informal
:
tener ojos en la nuca
- Her mom always claimed she had eyes in the back of her head because she could sense when her children were misbehaving.
Examples
-
He needs eyes in the back of his head.
-
"I imagine this comes from moms and dads with eyes in the back of their heads."
Blog text (30) -
He's obviously done this many times before, and might have eyes in the back of his head.
Blog text (29) -
'Cause Frankie Granucci has eyes in the back of his head."
-
"If he treats 'em like that all the time, though, he'd better grow eyes in the back of his head, or else he'll have an accident one fine day—or lots of runaways, anyhow."
Fiction book (1992) -
Kadar seemed to have eyes in the back of his head when he caught his friends sneaking behind him.
-
With her keen observation skills, many said she had eyes in the back of her head during the game.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
eye + in + the + back + of + one + head
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from the parts: 'eyes' (seeing) placed 'in the back of one's head' (behind you) conveys noticing things that are not directly visible. This spatial-metaphor mapping is common across languages and follows an obvious compositional logic, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Eyes in the back of one's head comes from the clear picture of someone who seems to have extra eyes on the back of their head, so they can see what is happening behind them. So we say someone has these 'eyes' when they seem to 'notice everything' or catch things that others think are hidden.