roll one's eyes
Appearance
English
[edit]Pronunciation
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Verb
[edit]roll one's eyes (third-person singular simple present rolls one's eyes, present participle rolling one's eyes, simple past and past participle rolled one's eyes)
- (idiomatic) To deliberately turn one's eyes upwards, usually to indicate disapproval, indifference or frustration.
- 1859, Edward William Lane, Edward Stanley Poole, The Thousand and One Nights[1]:
- […] when these three men looked at the porter, they saw that he was intoxicated; and, observing him narrowly, they thought that he was one of their own class, and said, He is a mendicant like ourselves, and will amuse us by his conversation:—but the porter, hearing what they said, arose, and rolled his eyes, and exclaimed to them, Sit quiet, and abstain from impertinent remarks.
- 2022 September 27, Barclay Bram, “My Therapist, the Robot”, in The New York Times[2]:
- Woebot was full of tasks and tricks — little mental health hacks — which at first made me roll my eyes. One day Woebot asked me to press an ice cube to my forehead, to feel the sensation as a way of better connecting with my body.
- (idiomatic, archaic) As definition 1, but indicating flirtation or desire.
Translations
[edit]turn one's eyes upwards
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