Eyeball
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The ball of the eye.
"Near-synonym: eye"
- 2 the ball-shaped capsule containing the vertebrate eye wordnet
- 3 An instance of eyeballing something.
"Give this report an eyeball, will you please?"
- 4 Surveillance. informal
"Intelligence work is necessarily limited in scope by the capacity of national surveillance systems. […] Ultimately, it is only when you have an 'eyeball' or the electronic equivalent on a suspect that you have a reasonable chance of a preventive intervention."
- 5 A readership or viewership. in-plural
"We need compelling content for the new Web site so we can attract more eyeballs."
Show 2 more definitions
- 6 A face-to-face meeting. slang
"We had an eyeball last year."
- 7 A favourite or pet; the apple of someone's eye. Caribbean
- 1 To gauge, estimate or judge by eye, rather than measuring precisely; to look or glance at. informal, transitive
"A good cook can often just eyeball the correct quantities of ingredients."
- 2 look at wordnet
- 3 To stare at intently. informal, transitive
"Are you eyeballing my girl?"
- 4 To roll one's eyes. intransitive
"Guardiola strode on to the pitch at half-time to remonstrate with the Spanish referee, Antonio Mateu Lahoz, but went too far with his eyeballing and matador-like hand movements. He was “upstairs”, in the Colin Bell stand, to watch Liverpool’s second-half turnaround and a dismal seven days for City take another turn for the worse."
Example
More examples""If it's a light workout, OK." "Right, so will we allow crotch-kicking and eyeball crushing?""
Etymology
From eye + ball. Compare Middle English balle off the eye, balle of þe eyȝe (“eyeball”, literally “ball of the eye”).
Related phrases
More for "eyeball"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.