Dictionary

boss-eyed en · ADJ

Meanings

1. Cross-eyed; squinting.
   • We should change our hours of sitting because the nation can not properly be represented by Members who become boss-eyed workaholics because they start at 9:30 in the morning and work through until after midnight. 1990, Harriet Harman, in Hansard, 7 December, 1990, [www.hansard-corpus.org]
   • "[…] That aint dishonest—so you needn't look boss-eyed at me […]" 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter XI, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 187:
   • Suddenly it was OK to be weird or gay or geeky, a fey boy or a tough girl, a weed or a nerd, wonky-toothed or boss-eyed. Bowie was all these things and he was the coolest rock star ever. 2016 January 11, Stuart Maconie, “How Starman David Bowie fell to earth and ch-cha-changed an entire generation”, in Irish Mirror:
   • Dialectologists have produced dialect maps showing different usages in different areas. For example, in England, a map could show different terms for "cross-eyed:" cock-eyed in Northumberland, Westmoreland and parts of the Midlands, boss-eyed in South-East England and East Anglia, squint-eyed in Devon and parts of Somerset, and cross-eyed in Cheshire, Derbyshire and the Isle of Man […] 2005, Margaret Maclagan, “Regional and Social Variation”, in Martin J. Ball, editor, Clinical Sociolinguistics, John Wiley & Sons, page 17:
   • The reality, according to Susan, was that he was slurring his speech, occasionally spitting out the words in her ear, in an effort to be heard above the night club music, and starting to go slightly boss-eyed with the drink. 2014, D. J. Roberts, chapter 1, in This is the Modern World, Bloomington, IN: Author House, page 4:
2. Blind in one eye; having one injured eye.
   • "There's some roads a man has to be led, an' there's some roads a boss-eyed man can only follow wi' one eye shut. But this road can't be lost by a blind man nor a boss-eyed man nor a cripple and he's neither, thank God." 1915, D. H. Lawrence, chapter V, in The Rainbow, page 130:
   • "'Thou shouldst a' married, Jock,' said I. "He gurgled in his cup and set it down; his good eye turned upon us, twinkling. "'And where's the maid would look on boss-eyed Jock?' he said. 1906, Dion Clayton Calthrop, King Peter, London: Duckworth, page 220:

Forms

Relateds

boss eye