Cross-eyed means having both eyes turned in towards the nose. The medical name is a convergent squint.
It is a real condition rather than an expression, and in children it needs treating early, since the brain will otherwise suppress the image from one eye and the sight in it never develops properly. Glasses, patching or surgery all help. The word is used loosely and unkindly, and cross-eyed with tiredness is a figurative phrase meaning unable to focus at all.
1adjectivecross-eyedHaving eyes that turn inward towards each other.
“He was slightly cross-eyed and wore glasses from four.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 14 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word