roving eye
roving eye noun: wide-ranging observation of one's surroundings.
Noun
roving eye (plural roving eyes)
- Wide-ranging observation of one's surroundings.
- Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim smile as his roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and groping secretly for sixpences.1840 April – 1841 November, Charles Dickens, “Chapter the Nineteenth”, in The Old Curiosity Shop. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1841, →OCLC
- His roving eye traveled around the room, and, resting upon the three guests, became inflamed.1916, Joseph A. Altsheler, chapter 9, in The Hunters of the Hills
- The personal characteristic of taking amorous interest in people other than one's own spouse or regular romantic partner.
- This dame she was new-fangled
And of a roving eye. . . .
"Beshrew me," quoth King Arthur,
"I think thou be'st not true!"1858, Thomas Bulfinch, chapter 4, in Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Chivalry - But because she her wanton, roving eye
Turned upon me, her angry paramour
Did scourge her from her head unto her feet.1909, Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Purgatorio, Canto 32
- This dame she was new-fangled
Examples of roving eye in a sentence
- Like Jimmy Breslin, a writer he was often compared to, he turned his roving eye to ordinary Southerners overlooked by most writers and mined the inexhaustible vein of human experience.2009 July 12, William Grimes, “Paul Hemphill, Chronicler of the South, Dies at 73”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Mar 2018:
- The heavy-duty 2001 creation could also keep Miss Israel safe from the roving eye of pageant director Donald Trump.2001 April 21, Ellin Martens, “People: Beauty and the Bombshells”, in Time, retrieved 21 Mar 2018:
Forms of roving eye
| plural | roving eyes |
|---|---|
| alternative form | roaming eye |
Questions about roving eye
- What does roving eye mean?
- Roving eye means wide-ranging observation of one's surroundings.
- How do you use roving eye in a sentence?
- Like Jimmy Breslin, a writer he was often compared to, he turned his roving eye to ordinary Southerners overlooked by most writers and mined the inexhaustible vein of human experience.
- What part of speech is roving eye?
- Roving eye is a noun.
- What is the plural of roving eye?
- The plural of roving eye is roving eyes.
Words near roving eye in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: roving 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-roving eye.ogg.
Cite this entry: “roving eye.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roving_eye. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.