Word.ws English Dictionary

owly-eyed

owly-eyed adjective: seeing better in darkness than light; day-blind or photosensitive.

Adjective

owly-eyed (comparative more owly-eyed, superlative most owly-eyed)

  1. Seeing better in darkness than light; day-blind or photosensitive.
    • […] And he doesn't do no riding after dark near Dishpan Flats. Them poor misguided sodbusters ain't much account in most ways, but they're owly-eyed at night."2005, Leslie Ernenwein, High Gun, Wheeler Publishing, published 2005, →ISBN, page 47
  2. Wide-eyed, naturally or from an expression of fear, shock, surprise, or excitement.
    • Gabe looked owly-eyed at the fellow and then prissed his mouth.1961, John Myers Myers, I, Jack Swilling, Founder of Phoenix, Arizona, Hastings House, published 1961, page 118
  3. (slang) Extremely drunk.
    • Paul was owly-eyed by then, and he tried to hide it by saying, "Must've lost m' balance," but we noticed that when he clapped a fresh holt on, he was using both his graspers.1951, John Sanford, A Man Without Shoes, Black Sparrow Press, published 1982, →ISBN, page 252
    Synonyms:
    paralytic

Synonyms of owly-eyed

Forms of owly-eyed

comparativemore owly-eyed
superlativemost owly-eyed
alternative formowly eied

Origin of owly-eyed

From owly + eyed.

Questions about owly-eyed

What does owly-eyed mean?
Owly-eyed means seeing better in darkness than light; day-blind or photosensitive.
What part of speech is owly-eyed?
Owly-eyed is an adjective.

Words near owly-eyed in the dictionary

  1. owlsonas
  2. owly
  3. owly eied
  4. owly sulphur
  5. owly sulphurs
  6. owly-eyed
  7. Owmby-by-Spital
  8. own
  9. own brand
  10. own brands
  11. own goal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: owly-eyed (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-owly-eyed.ogg.

Cite this entry: “owly-eyed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/owly-eyed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.