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Glite Dictionary
eyeshine

eyeshine

7.7
A glow in animals' eyes, like cats or dogs, when light shines on them
  • noun
  • /ˈaɪˌʃaɪn/
translation icon : brillo ocular
  • "Absent any eyeshine, the strikingly large eyes of tarsiers do not broadcast their location as one might hope.

Examples

  • At night, the roads were alive with the eyeshine of nocturnal animals reflecting in the headlights.

  • In low light, that "bright carpet" improves vision and, as a byproduct, renders an animal's pupils visible as "eyeshine."

    Academic text (2010)

  • There are only the buoys, whose red lights remind me of the eyeshine of spotlighted alligators, and the lights of the other flounder hunters.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The flash of my camera revealed the eyeshine of the deer hidden among the trees.

  • During the hike, we spotted several animals by the glowing eyeshine that shone back at us in the dark.

Synonyms

catchlight
vseyeshine
  • Specialized
7.6

A small bright reflection in a person's eyes in a photo or painting that makes them look alive

is a stronger glow often seen in animals at night

Antonyms

darkness
534 1.0

A time or place with almost no light

How Bright

glare
37 3.3
eyeshine
7.7
glow
119 1.0

Surface Forms

eyeshine singular
eyeshines plural

Morphology

eyeshine = eye + shine (transparent) = eye + shine

A straightforward compound of 'eye' + 'shine' where the meaning 'the shine/reflective glow of an eye' can be directly inferred by learners.

Etymology

Eyeshine comes from the simple parts eye and shine, meaning 'the eye' and 'to shine', and it names the bright glow you see in animal eyes when a light hits them, like a cat's green glow in a night photo.