1
: having or marked by unsophisticated or uncritical acceptance or admiration : naive
wide-eyed innocence
2
: having the eyes wide open especially with wonder or astonishment

Examples of wide-eyed in a Sentence

a wide-eyed and trusting child the sort of phony UFO "artifacts" that wide-eyed tourists fall for
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
A couple of my anxious students turned to me wide-eyed. Sally Ventura june 23, Literary Hub, 23 June 2025 Jaws is my favorite film, encompassing my feelings as a young wide-eyed child seeing it for the first time at a drive-in (talk about larger than life, especially for a small kid) and then rewatching it endlessly on TV and VHS until the tapes wore out. Mark Hughes, Forbes.com, 21 June 2025 If Miller’s wide-eyed turn leaves him more of a blank slate than necessary, that works well enough for a character who just might still have a shot at one day becoming a whole, functional person. Dennis Harvey, Variety, 20 June 2025 The Wailing feels almost clumsily human, a wide-eyed, panicking look at a world gone mad. Daniel Dockery, Vulture, 18 June 2025 See All Example Sentences for wide-eyed

Word History

First Known Use

1789, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of wide-eyed was in 1789

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Cite this Entry

“Wide-eyed.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wide-eyed. Accessed 30 Jun. 2025.

Kids Definition

wide-eyed

adjective
ˈwīd-ˈīd
1
: having the eyes wide open especially with wonder or astonishment
2

More from Merriam-Webster on wide-eyed

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