[f. EYE sb.1 + BALL.] = Ball of the eye. a. The apple or pupil. b. The eye itself within the lids and socket.
a. 1592. Shaks., Ven. & Ad., 119. Hold up thy head: Look in mine eye balls.
1607. Heywood, Wom. Kilde, Wks. 1874, II. 101. Your companie is as my eie-ball deere.
1614. Beaum. & Fl., Wit at Sev. Weapons, I. i. The brow of a Military face may not be offensive to your generous eyeballs.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 397. A fitful light in his eyeball glistened.
1871. R. Ellis, Catullus, lxiv. 219/63. Ere yet these dimly-lit eye-balls Feed to the full on thee.
b. 1590. Shaks., Mids. N., III. ii. 369. Crush this hearbe into Lysanders eie, Whose liquor hath this vertuous propertie, To … make his eie-bals role with wonted sight.
1668. Dryden, Ind. Emp., II. i. I feel … my eyeballs rowl.
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., VI. xx. Their stony eye-balls glitter’d on In the red and smoky light.
1802. Home, in Phil. Trans., XCII. 354. The eye-lid is very loose upon the eye-ball.
1866. Kingsley, Herew., I. xv. 317. Rolling in gore and agony, an arrow in his eyeball.
1876. M. Foster, Physiol., III. ii. 503. The eyeball is moved by six muscles.
