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View synonyms for apple of one's eye

apple of one's eye

[ ap-uhl uhv wuhnz ahy ]

noun

  1. something or someone very precious or dear:

    His new baby girl was the apple of his eye.



apple of one's eye

  1. The favorite object of a person's love or affection: “Linda was fond of all the horses on the ranch, but the little palomino was the apple of her eye.”


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Word History and Origins

Origin of apple of one's eye1

First recorded before 900; Old English æppel “apple,” also used to translate Latin pupillam oculī “pupil of the eye” (Psalm 18:8 of the Vulgate), figuratively extended to something or someone precious
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Idioms and Phrases

Special favorite, beloved person or thing, as in The youngest was the apple of his father's eye . This term, which rests on the ancients' idea that the eye's pupil is apple-shaped and that eyes are particularly precious, appears in the Bible (Deuteronomy 32:10). [Early 1600s]

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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