eyelock

noun, verb — 2 senses

eyelock

noun

Etymology From eye + lock.

1

An occurrence of mutual staring, where each person gazes fixedly into the other's eyes.

  • Finally, when the Sunday School classes marched into church for the last hour of the service, there would be added to the congregation young boys and girls, secured to their seats by the eyelocks of stern teachers.1983, Harry Mark Petrakis, Reflections: A Writer's Life, a Writer's Work, page 21:
  • The first one to break the eyelock by looking away, dropping the eyes, or closing the eyes was the loser.1988, Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, Intercultural communication: a reader, page 295:
1 more example
  • But this girl in the flimsy dress, a girl who couldn't seem to break eyelock with the Greek god standing behind her?2013, Joan Kilby, Gentlemen Prefer Nerds:

eyelock

verb

Etymology From eye + lock.

1

To lock eyes (with).

  • We eyelocked, looked really hard at eachother,^([sic]) each one thinking the other was the strange thing in the fishtank.1999, Gale Zoë Garnett, Visible amazement: a novel, page 106:
  • Giant Kurt Stregner pauses, sneers as he eyelocks Joe.2012, Iceberg Slim, Doom Fox:
1 more example
  • He had these impossibly dark eyes, the intense kind that looked like they knew what you were thinking, even before you did. We both looked away so fast that I had to wonder if we'd eyelocked at all.2014, Liz Fichera, Played:

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