Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wall-eyed \Wall"-eyed`\, a. [Icel. valdeyg[eth]r, or vagleygr;
fr. vagl a beam, a beam in the eye (akin to Sw. vagel a
roost, a perch, a sty in the eye) + eygr having eyes (from
auga eye). See Eye.]
Having an eye of a very light gray or whitish color.
--Booth.
Note: Shakespeare, in using wall-eyed as a term of reproach (as ``wall-eyed rage,'' a ``wall-eyed wretch''), alludes probably to the idea of unnatural or distorted vision. See the Note under Wall-eye. It is an eye which is utterly and incurably perverted, an eye that knows no pity.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1300, wawil-eghed, wolden-eiged, "having very light-colored eyes," also "having parti-colored eyes," from Old Norse vagl-eygr "having speckled eyes," from vagl "speck in the eye; beam, upper cross-beam," from Proto-Germanic *walgaz. Meaning "having one or both eyes turned out" (and thus showing much white) is first recorded 1580s.
Wiktionary
a. (alternative spelling of walleyed English)
Wikipedia
- redirect strabismus
Usage examples of "wall-eyed".
And began to call them all by name: As fast as they called the cats, they came There was bob-tailed Tommy and long-tailed Tim, And wall-eyed Jacky and green-eyed Jim, And splay-foot Benny and slim-legged Beau, And Skinny and Squally, and Jerry and Joe, And many another that came at call, It would take too long to count them all.
One-eyed, or Wall-eyed, Bogan, who had a broken nose, and the best side of whose face was reckoned the ugliest and most sinister--One-eyed Bogan thrust his face forward from the ring of darkness into the torchlight of salvation.
I saw cats-- Tom-cats, Mary Ann cats, long-tailed cats, bob-tailed cats, blind cats, one-eyed cats, wall-eyed cats, cross-eyed cats, gray cats, black cats, white cats, yellow cats, striped cats, spotted cats, tame cats, wild cats, singed cats, individual cats, groups of cats, platoons of cats, companies of cats, regiments of cats, armies of cats, multitudes of cats, millions of cats, and all of them sleek, fat, lazy and sound asleep.
She--they'll be screaming for that calf rope, kid, and that judge won't--I'll have that wall-eyed St.
In England they have semi-prohibition, in the shape of your Aunt Emily's wall-eyed Licensing Laws, and the beer is mostly muck.