by eye

idiom

: by looking at something to get a rough idea of its size
I measured the distance by eye.

Examples of by eye in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web They can be caused by quick pressure changes (i.e., sneezing or coughing), which can pop the capillaries in your eyes, or by eye trauma. Victoria Song, The Verge, 28 Feb. 2024 Using the extensive image archive created by MESSENGER, the researchers picked out terrain that shows signs of having been compressed by stresses generated by Mercury's compaction, and then examined this terrain by eye. John Timmer, Ars Technica, 3 Oct. 2023 John McCauley, director of the World Influenza Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London (one of the WHO’s flu collaborating centers), is one of the few people in the world who can interpret large tables of antigenic data by eye. IEEE Spectrum, 1 Feb. 2022 Graphing the brightness of a star’s spectrum made the measurement of colors far more accurate than can be done by eye. Phil Plait, Scientific American, 25 Aug. 2023 That work involves conducting old-fashioned blood tests that generate a complicated, multidimensional matrix of data that only a small number of experts in the world can interpret by eye. IEEE Spectrum, 1 Feb. 2022 The best comet hunter of all time is SOHO For hundreds of years, comets were spotted by astronomers either watching the skies by eye, or slowly scanning with a telescope. Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 20 Apr. 2010 Conditions on Saturday helped give access by eye to relatively distant vistas. Martin Weil, Washington Post, 31 Dec. 2023 Pot often makes a person’s eyes turn red, but this can also be caused by eye fatigue, allergies, and other common irritants. Andrew Weil, Harper's Magazine, 13 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'by eye.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Dictionary Entries Near by eye

Cite this Entry

“By eye.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/by%20eye. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

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