eyelash
Americannoun
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eyelashes
plural
-
one of the short, thick, curved hairs growing as a fringe on the edge of an eyelid.
-
the fringe of hairs itself.
noun
-
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
Can you explain how and why you came up with the eyelash sequence, which you shot in excruciating close-up, and the truly disgusting tapeworm?
From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2025
With the tip of the eyelash, he then lifted a few damaged slices out of the water and wiped them on a piece of tissue paper to get rid of them.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
Their faces are vivid, and haunting, whether bearing signs of greying hair and wrinkles, or the long eyelashes and chubby cheeks of a child.
From Barron's ● Nov. 3, 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
Pink poodles with long black eyelashes danced in a can-can line, a quartet of googly-eyed cacti bobbed along to the music and a trio of small white dogs galloped on the stage.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 16, 2026
A woman with the prettiest eyelashes I’ve ever seen shows me a triple-layer strawberry lip mask from Laneige that she thinks I will “looove.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 8, 2025
As she clicked on a photo, she peeked at me from underneath her long eyelashes.
From "Here to Stay" by Sara Farizan
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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.
