Word of the week: eye
The noun eye is known from A1 level in the sense of BODY PART, with further phrases and idioms featuring at higher CEFR levels. Learners appear to know two idioms with eye at B2 level, keep your/an eye on sb/sth and can’t keep/take your eyes off sb/sth. Given that there are fewer than ten idioms included in the English Vocabulary Profile up to B2 level, this is significant. As the earlier Word of the Week entry for foot indicated (see archived entries), idioms connected with parts of the body are commonly taught as a set and may be easier to internalise, as they often echo idioms in the first language: in Italian, tenere d’occhio means keep an eye on and in Spanish, someone who couldn’t take his eyes off a certain person se le fueron los ojos tras la chica! What about your own language? We would love to hear from you via the Feedback button if you have similar examples of ‘shared’ idioms. The English Vocabulary Profile now includes an Advanced Search for idioms, available in the current Preview Version for the letters DJK, where you will find more idioms using the verb keep.To view the full entry for eye on the English Vocabulary Profile, please click here.
