Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also in my eye!) a dismissive excl., nonsense! rubbish!

1820		‘Peter Corcoran’ ‘King Tims the First’ Fancy 29: No subjects mar my trade – for none can die; / And buryings without bodies are – my eye!
1826		‘Nocturnal Sports’ in Universal Songster II 180/1: My heyes, vat a night’s fun.
1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/1: My eyes why doesn’t you go to the tip top cove at once.
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 144: Church, my eye! woman! – Church, indeed!
1849		Sam Sly 2 June 1/2: For friendship's ‘my eye’ when one’s down on his luck.
1850		Manchester Spy (NH) 26 Oct. n.p.: My eyes! wasn’t he though?
1855		Bell’s Life in Sydney 2 June 3/2: Here a boy with a tray and a sheep’s head upon it, cried, ‘my eye, there she goes, with a shocking had bonnet’.
1867		H.L. Williams Ticket-of-Leave Man 33: My eye! blow me if I didn’t nearly do it!
1880		G.F. Northall ‘Momus’ Misc. 76: The folks would follow in a throng, / And say, ‘my stars! well, well! my eye!’.
1898		F.W. Hume Hagar of the Pawn-Shop 154: Oh, my bloomin’ eyes!
1913		‘J.W.L.’ Slave Stories 96: Disappear – my eye!
1929		B. Duffy Rocky Road 144: ‘I’m with a girl that’s goin’ to knock spots off her.’ ‘Y’are, in my eye!’ sneered Jim.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 63: Oh, Prunes, my eye!
1932		E.S. Gardner ‘Bird in the Hand’ in Goulart (1967) 266: Kleptomaniac, my eye! That’s a line of hooey.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 120: ‘It must be a beautiful place.’ ‘Beautiful my eye!’.
1954		Oh Boy! No. 23 7: Mistaken! My eye!
1965		R.H. Conquest Horses in Kitchen 32: Sixty-five my ruddy eye! I’m nudgin’ eighty!
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 255: ‘I’ll bet you’d forgotten all about it.’ ‘My eye I have.’.
1982		(con. 1930s–50s) E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 91: Kerry me eye, gollywog hats don’t fool me, you’se is as Dublin as the Coombe.
1996		(con. 1950s) C. Kenneally Maura’s Boy 39: Sure they’re all saying she’s up in Dublin, in hospital [...] She is in my eye.
2011		567 Cape Talk on Cape Radio 4 Mar. [radio] He said I’d won a prize. My eye!

2. (also my eyes and limbs!) a general excl., often of astonishment.

1780		Reading Mercury 17 July 3/2: D—n my eyes and limbs but I’ll be the death of her, for she is a Papist bitch.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 5: My eyes, how delightful!
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 453: But my eyes! How she did blow him up when she com’d in and see’d him just a going to bowl and tip, she tipp’d him a vollopper right across the snout.
1826		T. Creevey letter 11 Aug. in Gore Creevey Papers (1948) 265: My eye, what a spot for a ‘walky, walky’.
1828		‘A Flat Enlightened’ Life in the West I 282: ‘My eyes and limbs! he’ll make a fine flat’.
1834		Hants. Advertiser 28 June 4/6: My eyes and limbs, what a state the river’s in.
1838		Dickens Oliver Twist (1966) 101: ‘My eyes, how green!’ exclaimed the young gentleman. ‘Why a beak’s a madgst’rate.’.
1840		Leicester Chron. 25 July 3/6: My eyes and limbs, who’s been here?
1840		R. Barham ‘The Dead Drummer’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 206: Why, my precious eyes! what a bloodthirsty swab!
1841		Comic Almanack Jan. 254: Humph! that little ’un – you can buy / For half-a-guinea: – O my eye! / If you please, a penny bun!
1850		(con. 1843) Melville White-Jacket (1990) 205: ‘My eyes!’ exclaimed a foretop-man, ‘don’t that ’ere bunch of old swabs belong to Jack Chase’s pet?’.
a.1854		‘Cuthbert Bede’ ‘Æger’ in College Tales (1893) 224: My eyes! ain’t that a whopper, neither!
1858		F.W. Farrar Eric I 216: My eye, shouldn’t we catch it!
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 136/1: Oh, my eyes! ain’t Billy’s head a-swelling!
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 119/1: ‘My eyes and limbs!’ quoth he.
1865		Dickens Our Mutual Friend (1994) 572: Oh, my eye! [...] Tut, tut, tut! Dear, dear, dear!
1870		Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) 30 Apr. 497/1: My eyes! what soft beds these is!
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 232: Well I never! did you ever? Oh my eye.
1882		Chambers’s Journal 19 Aug. 530: My eye! How you do mug up, Charley! You might go through this town [...] and I don’t believe a soul would know you [F&H].
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 68: He usen’t to wear any clothes, only a dirty old blanket [...] and as to when he last washed hisself, my eyes!
1887		Pall Mall Gaz. 6 Jan. 4/1: Oh, my eyes and limbs! oh, my lungs and liver!
1894		G. du Maurier Trilby 71: ‘Oh, maïe aïe!,’ exclaimed Trilby; ‘you do use lovely language!’ [Ibid.] 271: If any one tries to fool him, my eyes!
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 359: My eye! dames is allus fightin’.
1911		Gem 23 Sept. 27: My eye, but it’s a whopper!
1920		Marvel 3 July 5: My eyes! It’s the first time I ever heard of a pine being a beech.
1928		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 3 Nov. 4/6: My eyes and limbs! What a nasty knock for the Gooseberry-strate Socialists!
1936		Hotspur 11 Jan. 47: My eye, you’ve certainly caused some goings-on since you blossomed forth as footballers.
1950		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 32 June 4/6: My eyes and limbs! What a rackit!
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 191: Well, my eye! [...] You found the wallet in your pocket. ’Ow do you think it got there?
1978		P. Theroux Picture Palace 11: My eye! Of course no one admitted it.