to take one's eyes off
66
4.1
- phrasal verb
:
apartar la vista de
- While driving, you should never take your eyes off the road.
Examples
-
Never take your eyes off your opponent, even when you bow.
-
It's hard to take your eyes off such a beautiful landscape.
-
Why did you take your eyes off the road to sing?
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I know I took my eye off the ball, but I want to make things right.
-
Now, it's impossible for me to take my eyes off her face.
Fiction book (1995) -
With her back to him, Robert never takes his eyes off her.
Fiction book (1995) -
You know, the other evening, when we went for dinner... ...you hardly took your eyes off me.
-
But since Elizabeth had come into the room, I could not take my eyes off her.
Fiction book (1994) -
Cut to Paul, and he cannot take his eyes off the disaster.
Fiction book (1990) -
There must be a reason why you can't take your eyes off me.
Synonyms
125
2.2
Turn your eyes away from a person or thing that makes you uncomfortable
7
6.5
Stop paying attention to what is important
Stop looking at something you were watching
Antonyms
How Attentive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'take' + 'one's eyes' + 'off' literally conveys removing one's gaze, so a B1 learner who knows the words can infer 'stop looking at' or 'cease gazing'. The pattern 'take X off' = 'remove X' is a common, cross-linguistically transparent construction, making the expression immediately understandable from its parts.
Etymology
Take one's eyes off comes from the simple image of physically moving your eyes off something and turning your gaze away. So, to 'take your eyes off' someone or something means 'to stop looking' at them.