lay eyes on

Idioms  

1. Also,. Look at, see, as in As soon as I laid eyes on him I knew he would be perfect for the lead in our play, or I'd never set eyes on such a beautiful gown. The first term dates from the early 1200s and the third from the late 1300s; the second, using clap in the sense of “a sudden movement,” dates from the first half of the 1800s.

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Example Sentences

He and his crew were the first Europeans to lay eyes on California, and what they saw on Oct.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 1, 2023

Of the hundreds of souls that gathered here in Lower Manhattan, only a few dozen journalists, police officers and lawyers would even lay eyes on the man they had come to see.

From Washington Post • Apr. 4, 2023

But today, the residents largely remember her arrival as a moving gesture of solidarity from someone they never expected to lay eyes on.

From New York Times • Sep. 18, 2022

It was there, on the outskirts of Jordan, Montana, that Brown became the first human to lay eyes on the monstrous form of the T. rex.

From Slate • Jul. 4, 2022

I never want to lay eyes on any Spiritualists again, and I wish to say clearly that I owe all my misfortune to that woman, my sister, Mrs. Underhill.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock