give someone the eye
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to look at someone in a flirtatious or inviting way
Literally: to give someone a look
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She gives him his eyes, she found them
I seem to remember that he never stopped talking and I had given him the cold fish eye.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “give someone the eye” mean?
to look at someone in a flirtatious or inviting way Literally: to give someone a look
Is “give someone the eye” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.