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Definition 2024


dewy-eyed

dewy-eyed

English

Alternative forms

Adjective

dewy-eyed (comparative more dewy-eyed, superlative most dewy-eyed)

  1. Having eyes with a moist, glistening appearance, especially as indicating that one is on the verge of crying or that one is experiencing strong emotions.
    • c. 1910, Stewart Edward White, The Call of the North, ch. 1:
      One she saw clearly—a dewy-eyed, lovely woman who murmured loving, broken words.
    • 2000, Romesh Ratnesar, "The Victory Lap?," Time Magazine Europe, 12 June:
      Bill Clinton has never shied away from displays of dewy-eyed, lip-biting sentimentality.
  2. (figuratively) Naive or innocent in the manner of a child.
    • 1918, John Galsworthy, "The Apple Tree" in Five Tales:
      At one moment he gave himself up completely to his pride at having captured this pretty, trustful, dewy-eyed thing!
    • 1922, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Robin, ch. 21:
      Dowie could scarcely have told what phrase or word at last suddenly brought up before her a picture of the nursery in the house in Mayfair—the feeling of a warm soft childish body pressed close to her knee, the look of a tender, dewy-eyed small face and the sound of a small yearning voice saying: "I want to kiss you, Dowie."
  3. Excessively nostalgic.

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