Word.ws English Dictionary

up to one's eyeballs

up to one's eyeballs phrase: deeply engaged in something, to the point of being overwhelmed.

Phrase

up to one's eyeballs

  1. Deeply engaged in something, to the point of being overwhelmed.
    • First and foremost (rather than last but not least), I couldn't have done this without my wife Nicki Norman, who serves as sounding board and a voice of rationality and moderation, and who sees the big picture when I'm up to my eyeballs in details.2010, Peter H. Gleick, Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water

Origin of up to one's eyeballs

See up to here.

Questions about up to one's eyeballs

What does up to one's eyeballs mean?
Up to one's eyeballs means deeply engaged in something, to the point of being overwhelmed.
What part of speech is up to one's eyeballs?
Up to one's eyeballs is a phrase.

Words near up to one's eyeballs in the dictionary

  1. up to now
  2. up to one's ass in alligators
  3. up to one's chin
  4. up to one's ears
  5. up to one's elbows
  6. up to one's eyeballs
  7. up to one's eyebrows
  8. up to one's eyes
  9. up to one's neck
  10. up to one's neck in alligators
  11. up to one's old tricks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: up to one's eyeballs (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: “up to one's eyeballs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/up_to_one%27s_eyeballs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.