eyesore
Americannoun
-
eyesores
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of eyesore
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at eye, sore
Explanation
Something that's really unpleasant to look at is an eyesore. You could call your apartment building an eyesore if it's a huge, ugly concrete structure that looms over your street. Most eyesores are structures or buildings — an old, decrepit house that's sagging on one side and has a yard full of weeds is probably thought of as an eyesore by most of its neighbors. You might also describe a new hotel as an eyesore if it's painted a strange shade of pink that clashes with the buildings nearby. The word eyesore has been around since the 1500's, from the idea of "something so offensive to the eye that it hurts."
Vocabulary lists containing eyesore
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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:
But for everyone else in the Studio City neighborhood with a view of the house, it is an eyesore and a hazard.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
South L.A. locals say the Destination Crenshaw project has become disruptive and an eyesore.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
They hoped it would rid them of what they consider both an eyesore and an environmental hazard.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 31, 2026
Another eyesore home defeat, this time to Gloucester, cut them adrift of the top eight and a European spot for next season.
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2026
I says that old rattletrap’s just an eyesore, yet you’ll keep it standing there in the carriage house a hundred years just so that boy can ride to the cemetery once a week.
From "The Sound and the Fury" by William Faulkner
But festering eyesores are everywhere, as Bass herself indicated when she called in to KTLA-TV.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2026
Tearing down the eyesores “sparked a new energy and sense of pride,” said Wiseman, who lives in nearby Portage, Ind. ‘It was like a chain reaction.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026
If fashion is a storyteller, what are these eyesores trying to tell us?
From Salon ● Jun. 7, 2025
The ordinance isn’t a mechanism to remove mere eyesores, but a way to remove buildings that are open and unsafe.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 28, 2024
The neutral territory and the tripartite municipality of Apia were eyesores to the German consulate and Brandeis.
From A Footnote to History Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa by Robert Louis Stevenson
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.
