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• cat's eye
  cat's eye

  noun

  any of certain gems having a chatoyant luster, especially chrysoberyl.
• cat's-eye
  cat's-eye

  noun

  any of a group of gemstones, esp a greenish-yellow variety of chrysoberyl, that reflect a streak of light when cut in a rounded unfaceted shape

cat's eye

American  

[kats-ahy] / ˈkætsˌaɪ /

Or cat's-eye

noun

• cat's eyes,
  plural
• cat's-eyes
  plural

1. any of certain gems having a chatoyant luster, especially chrysoberyl.

2. a playing marble marked with eyelike concentric circles.

3. cat eye.

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cat's-eye British  

noun

1. any of a group of gemstones, esp a greenish-yellow variety of chrysoberyl, that reflect a streak of light when cut in a rounded unfaceted shape

2. Also called: ataata. a grazing marine gastropod, Turbo smaragdus , of New Zealand waters

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cat's eyes
  plural
• cat's-eyes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of cat's eye

First recorded in 1545–55

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cat's eye cat's-eye cat's-eyes

Light enters the eye through the cornea, the round, transparent surface of the cat’s eye.

From National Geographic ● Jan. 2, 2024

The bright, sweetish, clear liqueur is the color of a cat’s eye, and it hits the tongue like a fairy spell, otherworldly and arcane, floral, grassy and herbaceously vibrant.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2022

As a strange sound comes in over the telephone line and radio, Faye expresses her concern with a furrowed brow and quizzical looks behind her cat's eye glasses.

From Salon ● Dec. 16, 2020

In Baldwin’s book, the story is positioned at cat’s eye level, a little like the perspective in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 25, 2019

She doesn’t know what power this cat’s eye has, to protect me.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

“We always say there’s a lot of movies in this movie,” offers Gordon, who has blunt Betty Page bangs and eyeliner that flicks up at the corners in a delicate cat’s-eye.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 21, 2017

A woman in cat’s-eye glasses and straight dark hair sat on another woman’s lap; the woman with glasses turned out to be one-half of a married heterosexual couple from Westchester.

From New York Times ● May 11, 2017

Hyman, who was on leave to finish writing her book on Renaissance erotic poetry, wore bright-red cat’s-eye glasses and matching lipstick.

From The New Yorker ● May 23, 2016

“CatCam” is no more a cat’s-eye view of life than “Tokyo Waka” is a rendering of the world from a bird’s eye, but, together, they remind us that the human-animal relationship is a two-way street.

From New York Times ● Aug. 27, 2013

Except she had an old-fashioned bubble-top hairdo, cat’s-eye glasses, and a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows.

From "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library" by Chris Grabenstein

Never before has there been such a phantasmagoria of shapes, sizes, colors and prices: python, polka-dotted and zebra frames, champagne, vermilion and espresso-colored lenses, asymmetric cat's-eyes and jewelry-bedizened sun helmets that cost thousands of dollars.

From Time Magazine Archive

We had them all: cat’s-eyes, aggies, dearies, milkies, steelies, glassies, onionskins.

From Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm

There was a gnawing just under my new gold belt-buckle with the cat's-eyes on it, as if the cats had claws as well as eyes, and I remembered that it was ages since lunch.

From My Friend the Chauffeur by Frederic Lowenheim

"Will you permit a meddlesome old woman to inquire what made you buy those cat's-eyes?" said Mrs. Brewton.

From The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories by Owen Wister

The jewelers are testing the lapis lazuli, the pearls, the corals, the topazes, the sapphires, the cat's-eyes, the rubies, the emeralds, and all the other kinds of gems.

From The Little Clay Cart Mrcchakatika by Arthur William Ryder