eyestring

English

Alternative forms

• eye-string

Etymology

eye +‎ string

Noun

eyestring (plural eyestrings)

1. (obsolete, anatomy, chiefly in the plural) One of the fibres of the eye, such as a tendon, nerve or muscle.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “The Cave of Mammon”, in The Faerie Queene, Book 2, Canto VII:

     Or euer sleepe his eye-strings did vntye

     [paraphrase] Or ever sleep his eye-strings did untie

   • a. 1611, William Shakespeare, Cymbeline, act 1, scene 4:

     I would have broke mine eyestrings, cracked them, but / To look upon him,