IdiomBody & Senses
English
Englishcatch someone's eye
Meaning: To attract someone's visual attention.
Example: “A red dress in the shop window caught her eye.”
Origin: Built on a small but exact bit of physics: to notice something, your gaze has to physically land on it, so describing that moment as something "catching" your eye treats attention as if it were a thrown object that briefly got snagged. The figurative sense is on record by the late 1500s to early 1600s, well established in English by the 1700s, and needs no further explaining beyond the two words doing exactly what they say.
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