Eye-shot

[f. EYE sb.¹ + SHOT.]

  1.  The range of the eye, seeing distance, view. Only in phrases (To come, etc.) beyond, in, out of, within eyeshot of.

1599.  B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., V. i. When we come in eye-shot, or presence of this lady.

1690.  Dryden, Don Sebastian, II. ii. 42. I am … out of eye-shot from the other Windows.

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., xli. (1856), 375. I have often crawled within fair eye-shot, and … watched their movements.

1865.  Swinburne, Atalanta, 876. Here in your sight and eyeshot of these men.

1862.  Lowell, Biglow P., Ser. II. 54. Boys beyond eyeshot of the tithing-man.

  fig.  1858.  Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 4. The instant he comes within eye-shot of the fulfilment of his hopes.

  2.  A shot from the eye; a glance, prospect.

1615.  Sylvester, Tobacco Battered, 291. The Pest … Or deadly Ey-shot of a Basilisk.

1704.  Steele, Lying Lover, V. i. How shall I bear the Eye-Shot of the Crowd in Court? Ibid. (1709), Tatler, No. 52, ¶ 3. The Sexes seem to separate themselves, and draw up to attack each other with Eye-shot.

1860.  Hawthorne, Marb. Faun, II. iii. 36. The windows and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more extensive eyeshots over hill and valley.

1879.  G. Meredith, Egoist, III. x. 210. Vernon sent one of his vivid eyeshots from one to the other.