Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a phr. meaning utter, absolute nonsense; also attrib. (see cite 1927).

1728		Vanbrugh & Cibber Provoked Husband V i: la. grace: O fy! there is not a more elegant Beauty in Town, when she’s drest. man: In my eye, Madam, she that’s early drest has ten times her elegance.
1763		Universal Mag. Knowledge & Pleasure 32 159: This treatment, Gentlemen, is all my eye.
1768		O. Goldsmith Good Natur’d Man II i: That’s all my eye – the king only can pardon.
1788		‘De Night before Larry was Stretch’d’ Irish Songster 4: When one of us ax’d ‘could he die, / Widout having truly repented,’ / Says Larry ‘dat’s all in my eye’ / And first by de clergy invented.
1793		Bacchanalian Mag. 58: ‘Why jealous girls, it’s all my eye’.
1819		Jack the Giant Queller 18: He did not e’en attend to half his duties, / And when he did, indeed was all my eye.
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 7: Phoo! [...] a volunteer! That’s all in my eye!
1825		‘The Nightingale-Club’ Universal Songster I 2: ‘That’s all my eye,’ says the Watchman.
1826		Bell’s Life in London 24 Dec. 2/5: We know that ’tis only ‘my eye’.
1833		‘True Principles of Milling’ in Corinthian in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 57: First to frighten your man by your chaffing ne’er try, / Tho’ a few greens may laugh, still it is all my eye.
1833		C.A. Davis Letters of Major J. Downing (1835) 123: And old laws are ‘all my eye.’.
1838		T. Haliburton Clockmaker II 85: You treat the subject with as much levity as if, to use one of the elegant and fashionable phrases of this country, you thought it all ‘in my eye.’.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Feb. 2/2: Grimston’s Eye Snuff. A small portion of this valuable material is on sale at Mrs M’s. Joe says its all my eye.
1844		Leicester Jrnl 1 Mar. 4/1: To one long used to gloom — All in my eye.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Feb. 2/2: [He] quoted from ‘Grabem’s Digest on All my Eye,’ No. 2, page 62.
1849		Sam Sly 3 Feb. 2/2: He would advise him to purchase a little sticking plaster for his nose. Sam thinks it’s all my eye that the sore proceeds from a cold.
1851		‘London Vocalists’ Jolly Comic Songster 237: Here’s Brittania rules the wave – but that ’ere’s All in my eye, sirs.
1855		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Mar. 28/2: Medicus: Pooh pooh that’s all my eye!
1857		Dickens Little Dorrit (1967) 319: You know, in a general way, what being a reference means. It’s all your eye, that is!
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 30: eye Nonsense; humbug.
1867		G.E. Clark Seven Years of a Sailor’s Life 49: O, that’s all in my eye; don’t you ’spose the old man knows the road?
1868		H.L. Williams Black-Eyed Beauty 62: They mumble of ‘descended from Duke of York, royal blood,’ all my eye, et cet.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 601: Eye, all in your — a phrase expressive of utter unbelief in an account related by another.
1878		G. Leybourne ‘Covent Garden’ Comic Songs 12: Very often he’ll try, – but it’s all my eye – / To get home to his supper, still warming.
1882		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 June 2/1: ‘All my eye.,’ says Lillian.
1884		Dundee Eve. Teleg. 26 Sept. 4/2: ‘All in your eye’ is a common jocose remark.
1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) III 454: ‘It’s all my eye,’ she used to remark when we talked on the subject.
1893		in W.S. Walsh Literary Curiosities 352: Eye. All my eye. This slang term for fudge, nonsense.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 4 Mar. 1/3: Again, his rumoured blindness is a lie — / In fact, the cablegrams are ‘all my eye’.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict 3: All in My Eye, a joke; I don't believe it.
1906		O.C. Malvery Soul Market 35: In the same house [...] lived two ‘grizzlers’ — men who were supposed to be respectively blind and crippled. Ellen assured us it was all ‘my eye’.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 25/3: No, he has no ‘pore ole muvver.’ That is ‘all his eye.’.
1920		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 17 May 4/5: There was some talk of committee men having the inside running being able to get an early notmination in a limited dog stake, but that was all ‘in my eye’ in this instance.
1927		(con. WW1) P. MacDonald Patrol 118: ‘A bleedin’ ketch-as-ketch-can huggin’-party with a lot of all-me-eye rules made up on the spot’.
1928		Gundagai Indep. (NSW) 2 July 3/2: This talk about prospects not ‘been too bright’ is all in my eye and Betty Martin.
1929		J.B. Priestley Good Companions 350: It’s all me eye.
1934		C. Drew ‘Shakespeare Harry’s Runner’ in Bulletin 27 June 50/1: That tale his manager put up about wanting the measurin’-tape to check the Botany track was all me eye .
1935		G. Ingram Cockney Cavalcade 77: This Raffles business was all ‘my eye’, really, and couldn’t be done.
1943		‘Myles na gCopaleen’ Faustus Kelly in ‘Flann O’Brien’ Stories & Plays (1973) 151: Yerrah, that’s all me eye for a yarn, you won’t win any election with that class of talk.
1951		Motherwell Times (Lanarks.) 10 Aug. 3/1: When a friend says,m ‘It’s all in my eye,’ he either means he doesn’t believe a word of it, or he has heard so many stories [...] it’s just a lot of eyewash!
1958		D. Stivens Scholarly Mouse and other Tales 15: ‘All my eye!’ said the old mouse.