Meaning & use
simple eye
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Meaning
nouncountablebiology
A light-sensing organ with a single lens, found in many insects and other small animals, that detects brightness and movement but forms little detail.
Grammar: Plural is simple eyes: a bee has three simple eyes.
Patterns
- the simple eyes of something
Besides its two large compound eyes, the wasp has three simple eyes on top of its head.
A simple eye can tell light from dark but cannot show a sharp picture.
Some caterpillars see the world only through simple eyes.
Word forms
| plural | simple eyes |
|---|
Common combinations
- have a simple eye
- Many spiders have a simple eye rather than a compound one.
- simple eyes and compound eyes
- The diagram compares simple eyes and compound eyes.
- a single-lens simple eye
- A single-lens simple eye gathers light onto a few receptor cells.
- simple eye structure
- The simple eye structure is much less complex than a human eye.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ocellus
- Ocellus is the technical Latin-derived term and is more common in advanced biology, while simple eye is easier for general readers.
- stemma
- Stemma refers specifically to the simple eyes of insect larvae, so it is narrower than simple eye.
Opposites
Word family
- ocelli noun
- plural of ocellus, the simple eyes of insects
- eye noun
- the organ of sight
- compound eye noun
- an eye made of many tiny units
Commonly confused: simple eye or compound eye?
simple eye vs compound eye
A compound eye is made of hundreds or thousands of small lenses and forms a mosaic image, while a simple eye has just one lens.
Practice
Which animal feature lets a caterpillar sense light with only one lens per sensor?
Choose one answer.
A simple eye has a single lens. A compound eye has many lenses, so it is the tempting but wrong choice.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “simple eye”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.