eyeball, n.² — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

eyeball n.²

1. a look or glance; an inspection.

1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 89: Every eyeball in the cafeteria was pointed our way.
1977		J. Langone Life at the Bottom 201: If you make a eyeball at ’em [...] Christ, you’ll get your ass up to mast.
1990		J. Ellroy ‘Gravy Train’ in Pronzini & Adrian Hard-Boiled (1995) 492: An eyeball on the foxy redhead who strolled her Lab.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 320: They did an eyeball.
2003		Bug (Aus.) Sept. 🌐 An eyeball of the menu confirmed my suspicions.

2. a headlamp.

1975

L. Dills CB Slanguage 37: Eyeballs: headlights.

3. a careful person.

1993

A. Rodriguez Spidertown (1994) 44: ‘Now you be a fucken eyeball. Somebody behind’ju?’ Miguel glanced around him. The street was empty.

eyeball witness (n.)

(US) a witness who actually observes a crime (rather than one who hears shouts, gunshots, etc].

1974		E. Leonard Mr Majestyk 38: ‘The eyeball witness who saw Frank Renda commit murder was an off-duty police officer’.
1986		J. Ellroy Suicide Hill 97: ‘No eyeball witnesses at either crime scene?’ ‘Right’.

do in the eyeball (v.)

give someone the eyeball (v.)

to stare at aggressively; often with adj., such as give someone the dirty eyeball.

1977		J. Sayles Union Dues (1978) 195: I didn’t have my ID and the guy gave me the hairy eyeball all the time I’m in there.
1997		L. Davies Candy 21: There were lots of people I knew there, and a few of them gave me the dirty eyeball.
2012		D. O’Donnell Locked Ward (2013) 71: Donnie had given me the eyeball [...] then asked John, ’Who’s the new nurse [...] Don’t like the look of him’.

...someone’s eyeballs out

(US) to a great extent, intensely, overwhelmingly.

1934

W.R. Burnett Goodbye to the Past 114: ‘Mose is working him [i.e. a horse]. Getting him ready to trot your eyeballs out’.

to the eyeballs (adv.) (also to one’s eyeballs)

an intensifying phr. implying to an extreme extent.

1955		E. Hunter ‘See Him Die’ in Jungle Kids (1967) 102: Django was not only heeled but that he was probably heeled to his eyeballs.
1964		A. Hine Unsinkable Molly Brown 61: You’re sozzled to the eyeballs!
1976		R. Morrieson Pallet on the Floor 65: He’s grogged to the eyeballs.
1981		C. Hope Separate Development 157: He is zonked to the eyeballs on dagga and skokiaan.
1998		Bug (Aus.) 16 Aug. 🌐 Every game, Smokey was bombed to the eyeballs on pot.