eyelash
Americannoun
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eyelashes
plural
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one of the short, thick, curved hairs growing as a fringe on the edge of an eyelid.
-
the fringe of hairs itself.
noun
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any one of the short curved hairs that grow from the edge of the eyelids
-
a row or fringe of these hairs
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of eyelash
Explanation
An eyelash is a hair that grows from your top or bottom eyelid. Try batting or fluttering your eyelashes to get attention. You'll either get what you want or look silly, or both. Eyelashes are small, usually dark and curved, and having plenty of long, lush eyelashes is considered attractive in everyone, male or female. The combination of your blinking eyelids and the fringe of eyelashes helps keep small particles out of your eyes — and eyelashes are sensitive in a similar way to a cat's whiskers, so that your eyes will shut reflexively when some object comes too close.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"The smallest one I did was Shakespeare inside a hair. I couldn't paint it with an eyelash, so I had to paint it with a piece of dust."
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2026
Many species are no wider than an eyelash and typically grow close to the ground in damp, shaded environments.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 1, 2026
Years later, when my salary broke six figures, I found myself dropping $20 on a fancy cocktail without batting a designer-mascaraed eyelash.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025
CassieAnn said it felt like she had a "small eyelash" on her eye the next day after the procedure, but it disappeared within a day.
From Salon ● May 4, 2025
“There’s an eyelash right there,” I said, pointing to one of the thick lenses.
From "Wish" by Barbara O'Connor
In a realistic 1870s monument for a member of the Piaggio family, a dead man’s widow, shown leaving the door of a tomb, is wearing an elaborate lace shawl and mourning through her sculpted eyelashes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
She hid her habit with lash extensions, but when beauty salons closed during Covid Daisy decided to create a serum to help her eyelashes grow back.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
Here he is as arresting theorizing about the origins of “The Goon Show,” which he traces to the trauma of World War II, as he is contemplating the quality of Liza Minnelli’s eyelashes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
To keep things feeling authentic, co-editors Affonso Gonçalves and Zhao keep in flukes that other filmmakers might consider flubs, like an insect dive-bombing one of the actor’s eyelashes.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
Without eyes to offer contrast, the eyelashes looked like insects moving against the hollow sockets.
From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
