any of certain gems having a chatoyant luster, especially chrysoberyl.
a playing marble marked with eyelike concentric circles.
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
Also called: ataata. a grazing marine gastropod, Turbo smaragdus , of New Zealand waters
First recorded in 1545–55
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
Between her hands, at the level of her heart, she holds a glass object: an oversized cat’s eye marble, with a blue center.
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
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 Ryder, Arthur William
“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 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Last summer, on the Northern Pacific, the man offered your cat's-eyes to me as native gems found exclusively in Dakota.
From The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories by Wister, Owen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
