deep-set
adjEtymology From deep + set.
1
Set deeply below a surface, as on a face.
- His haggard eyes were deep-set, sunken into their sockets from exhaustion.
- Deep-set and steady, with eyelashes that many a woman had envied, they [the eyes] showed the man for what he was—a sportsman and a gentleman. And the combination of the two is an unbeatable production.1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, chapter 1, in Bulldog Drummond:
2
Figuratively firmly in place; long-standing
- deep-set beliefs
- deep-set inequalities