plat-eye
plat-eye noun: a mythical monster or ghost in the folklore of the West Indies and southern United States; it is a being with large, glowing eyes, capable of shapeshifting and sometimes depicted as a phantom bound to a particular place, such as a cave or grove, as a guardian (for buried treasure, etc).
Noun
plat-eye (plural plat-eyes)
- A mythical monster or ghost in the folklore of the West Indies and southern United States; it is a being with large, glowing eyes, capable of shapeshifting and sometimes depicted as a phantom bound to a particular place, such as a cave or grove, as a guardian (for buried treasure, etc).
- De ole folks is talk bout Plat-eye. Dey say dey takes shape ob all kind de critter1985, Charles Joyner, quoting Maum Addie, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler c. 1938, Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community, page 152
Forms of plat-eye
| plural | plat-eyes |
|---|
Origin of plat-eye
From plat, a term of unknown origin, plus eye. Attested from the 19th century. Originally African-American, especially South Carolina.
Questions about plat-eye
- What does plat-eye mean?
- Plat-eye means a mythical monster or ghost in the folklore of the West Indies and southern United States; it is a being with large, glowing eyes, capable of shapeshifting and sometimes depicted as a phantom bound to a particular place, such as a cave or grove, as a guardian (for buried treasure, etc).
- What part of speech is plat-eye?
- Plat-eye is a noun.
- What is the plural of plat-eye?
- The plural of plat-eye is plat-eyes.
Words near plat-eye in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: plat-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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Cite this entry: “plat-eye.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plat-eye. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.