Word.ws English Dictionary

catch the eye

catch the eye verb: to attract the attention.

Verb

catch the eye (third-person singular simple present catches the eye, present participle catching the eye, simple past and past participle caught the eye)

  1. (idiomatic) To attract the attention
    • Meantime, the train went on to Brighton without further incident. No small stir was caused by its arrival with No. 61 at its head, resplendent with "East London Line Special" head boards, which at once caught the eye of William Stroudley, who was observing the traffic working from his office window.1951 May, J. Pelham Maitland, “A Memorable Run by a Brighton "Terrier"”, in Railway Magazine, page 347
    • Lawrie Wilson caught the eye with a surging run, although his strike was blocked, while Bostwick's powerful low strike drew an excellent save from Krul.2011 January 8, Paul Fletcher, “Stevenage 3 - 1 Newcastle”, in BBC

Forms of catch the eye

third-person singular presentcatches the eye
present participlecatching the eye
past participlecaught the eye
pastcaught the eye

Questions about catch the eye

What does catch the eye mean?
Catch the eye means to attract the attention.
What part of speech is catch the eye?
Catch the eye is a verb.
What is the past tense of catch the eye?
The past tense of catch the eye is caught the eye.

Words near catch the eye in the dictionary

  1. catch someone's fancy
  2. catch step
  3. catch steps
  4. catch strays
  5. catch the bus
  6. catch the eye
  7. catch the last chopper out of 'Nam
  8. catch the light
  9. catch the queer
  10. catch the sun
  11. catch the ten

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: catch the eye (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-catch the eye.ogg.

Cite this entry: “catch the eye.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/catch_the_eye. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.