big eye

noun

big eye

noun
1

Insomnia due to the lengths of the days and nights in the polar regions.

  • He would permit Mrs Leeming, he said with a sly Irish smile, to visit the pit site only if she got a full night's sleep, no big-eye, no waiting up for the midnight sun.1969, Thomas Keneally, The Survivor:
  • One of the favorite myths of polar expeditions involves the "Big Eye," the fierce insomnia which is said to persecute the new arrival and which has been lent an almost legendary aura.1969, Gay Gaer Luce, Julius Segal, Insomnia, Doubleday, page 7:
1 more example
  • They had a cinema with several shows each week, but I missed these. There was provision for 'the big eye', their term for insomnia, so that anyone afflicted could watch a movie at virtually any time.2009, Jon Stephenson, Crevasse Roulette, Rosenberg, →ISBN, page 113:
Related terms
midnight sun, polar night

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.