bug-eyed adj.
1. cross-eyed; also as adv.
| [ | ![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Parson’s Wedding (1664) IV vii: Who, Pegg Driver, Bewgle Eyes? [...] Why, she is ugly now?]. |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Reno (NV) Weekly Gazette 24 Apr. 2/3: It is unfair for the newspapers in their reports of ministerial and other church trials to indulge in unsavory flings at prayer. The report usually says: [...] ‘Sister Biggs told Brother Hayne he was an old bible-backed, bug-eyed liar from Bitter creek,’ and winds up with ‘the doxology and benediction by Brother Myers.’. | |
| Wkly Dawn (Ellensburg, WA) 25 Aug. 2/2: The meanest, lowest, most contemptible and despised man on earth is the knock-kneed, loose-jointed, yonker-jawed, water-brained, pouch-bellied, bug-eyed, rattle-tongued, shallow-pated chronic office-seeker. | |
| Mop Fair 147: You omit [...] the Turf alias of the bug-eyed slanderer. | |
| N.Y. Tribune 13 Aug. 12/1: Laugh, ye blamed, bug-eyed, saw toothed chessy cats, laugh! | |
| ‘Some Kind of Color’ in Botkin Folk-Say 41: The proprietor was a bug-eyed Neapolitan. | |
| Luton News 3 Dec. 13/5: A step through the doors of Toyland will make mischievous little boys go bug-eyed. | |
| Moth (1950) 152: The cook went bug-eyed. | |
| Awopbop. (1970) 80: He’s always liable to launch himself into sudden spasms of bug-eyed operatics. | |
| Caldo Largo (1980) 140: Before a hurricane they turn apoplectic, get all red and bugeyed. | |
| Songlines 134: Myrtle sucked her thumb and stared, bug-eyed, at the Queen’s diamonds. | |
| ‘Stephanie’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 65: He was mid-40s, bald, and fucking bug-eyed intense. |
2. drunk or intoxicated by drugs [one’s eyes are popping like those of some insects].
| Last Toke 28: Bug-eyed Pecker and Jamaca watched Richie. | |
| Clockers 53: He was a damn addict as sure as any other bug-eyed dope fiend out here. | |
| Grand Central Winter (1999) 163: His [...] presence tends to cast a pall over my nightly devotion to bug-eyed bacchanal. | |
| I, Fatty 17: Bug-eyed and stubbly after a three-day bender. |
3. amazed, astounded; also as adv.
| Shorty McCabe 57: First they went bug-eyed. | |
| Shorty McCabe on the Job 10: Even knowin’ some of the odd streaks of Pyramid Gordon the way I did, this last and final sample had me bug-eyed. | |
| Merton of the Movies 193: He’s a small-town hick [...] kind of innocent and bug-eyed the way he’d rubber at things. | |
| (con. late 19C) Amer. Madam (1981) 206: The rube is so bug-eyed looking at the tits, he don’t care where he throws down the circles. | |
| Life in a Putty Knife Factory (1948) 37: I’d cry out: ‘Gangway! Scoop! Scoop! Scoop!’ Then I’d rush through the bug-eyed tourists, toward the elevators. | |
| I, Mobster 10: He was staring bug-eyed at Mamie. | |
| In For Life 289: An innovation that had me bug-eyed when I first heard of it. | |
| Flesh Peddlers (1964) 318: I was bug-eyed with horror. | |
| Gonif 83: We were all almost bug-eyed when Smitty exclaimed, ‘My God, this is the first time I ever underestimated a caper. Oh God damn! We got a wad!’. | |
| House of Slammers 50: He looked [...] in bug-eyed wonder at the sticks they carried. | |
| Love Is a Racket 94: It couldn’t have done a bigger bug-eyed, head-snappin’, jowl-shakin’, flustered Negro double take than the one I put together. | |
| Robbers (2001) 135: Della had sat bugeyed and watched, saying good lord, good lord. | |
| ‘Amphetamine Twitch’ in Crimes in Southern Indiana [ebook] The man blinked his bug-eyed whites awake. | |
| ‘Broken’ in Broken 3: Suazo looks kid of bug-eyed. |
4. showing signs of insanity.
| Wash. Times (DC) 9 Oct. 7/8: A bug-eyed Maniac with his Collar to the bad was found wandering hither and thither. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Poor Man’s Orange 210: She hurtled through, bug-eyed and yellow-pale. | |
| Go, Man, Go! 155: The driver, white and bug-eyed lay on his big horn with a long blast. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 272: Now all I got is bad dreams waiting for me in that cell, bug-eyed dreams. | |
| Fixx 151: I was living with two Milas [...] one bug-eyed and crazy, the other sleepily suicidal. | |
| Crack War (1991) 89: The Driver was hyped and bug-eyed. | |
| Observer Screen 6 Feb. 16: The bug-eyed madness adopted by all the main characters bursts free of all restraints. |