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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

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Etymology

Origin of cat's eye

First recorded in 1545–55

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

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

Those who know fashion recognize this as the cat's eye.

From Salon ● Oct. 27, 2024

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

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

I keep my cat’s eye in my pocket, where I can hold on to it.

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

Huge green eyes glared at me behind a pair of cat’s-eye glasses.

From "P.S. I Miss You" by Jen Petro-Roy

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

I desired to inform her that I disliked her, but one can never do those things; and, anxious to learn what was the matter with the cat's-eyes, I spoke amiably and politely to her.

From The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories by Owen Wister

“Why, of course, the young lady who is considered the reigning beauty here,” remarked Natalia Dimitrievna, rubbing her hands and looking hard at Zina with those cat's-eyes of hers.

From Uncle's dream; And The Permanent Husband by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Friday forenoon, May 5.—I don't have to gaze at my cat's-eyes to kill time any more.

From The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories by Owen Wister

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