Meaning & use
corner of your eye
Last updated
Meanings
phraseidiom
The outer edge of what you can see, where you notice things without looking straight at them.
Grammar: Almost always follows out of: I saw it out of the corner of my eye.
Patterns
- out of the corner of your eye
- see something out of the corner of your eye
- watch someone out of the corner of your eye
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the cat creeping onto the table.
She spotted a shadow in the corner of her eye and turned around.
He watched the clock out of the corner of his eye while pretending to listen.
nounsingular
The small angled part where the upper and lower lids meet, on the side nearest the nose or the ear.
Grammar: Used with in or at: a tear in the corner of her eye.
Patterns
- in the corner of your eye
A tear gathered in the corner of his eye.
She had a small speck in the corner of her eye.
The doctor looked closely at the corner of my eye.
Word forms
| plural | corners of your eyes |
|---|
Common combinations
- out of the corner of your eye
- He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye.
- catch something in the corner of your eye
- I caught a flash of red in the corner of my eye.
- a tear in the corner of your eye
- There was a tear in the corner of her eye.
- glance out of the corner of your eye
- She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
Synonyms and how they differ
- peripheral vision
- Peripheral vision is the technical term for the sides of your sight, while corner of your eye is a casual image used when something is noticed briefly.
- edge of vision
- Edge of vision is a plainer, more literal expression, whereas the corner of your eye is the fixed idiom people use in stories.
- sideways glance
- A sideways glance describes the action of looking, while corner of your eye describes the position of what you noticed.
Word family
Commonly confused: corner of your eye or tail of your eye?
corner of your eye vs tail of your eye
Some learners say tail of your eye, but the standard idiom uses corner.
Practice
I only saw the thief ____ the corner of my eye, so I could not describe his face.
Choose one answer.
The fixed idiom is out of the corner of your eye. The other prepositions are possible in other phrases but are not used in this idiom.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “corner of your eye”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.