eyelock

English

Alternative forms

• eye lock, eye-lock

Etymology

eye +‎ lock

Noun

eyelock (countable and uncountable, plural eyelocks)

1. An occurrence of mutual staring, where each person gazes fixedly into the other's eyes.
   • 1983, Harry Mark Petrakis, Reflections: A Writer's Life, a Writer's Work, page 21:

     Finally, when the Sunday School classes marched into church for the last hour of the service, there would be added to the congregation young boys and girls, secured to their seats by the eyelocks of stern teachers.

   • 1988, Larry A. Samovar, Richard E. Porter, Intercultural communication: a reader, page 295:

     The first one to break the eyelock by looking away, dropping the eyes, or closing the eyes was the loser.

   • 2013, Joan Kilby, Gentlemen Prefer Nerds:

     But this girl in the flimsy dress, a girl who couldn't seem to break eyelock with the Greek god standing behind her?

Verb

eyelock (third-person singular simple present eyelocks, present participle eyelocking, simple past and past participle eyelocked)

1. To lock eyes (with).
   • 1999, Gale Zoë Garnett, Visible amazement: a novel, page 106:

     We eyelocked, looked really hard at eachother, each one thinking the other was the strange thing in the fishtank.

   • 2012, Iceberg Slim, Doom Fox:

     Giant Kurt Stregner pauses, sneers as he eyelocks Joe.

   • 2014, Liz Fichera, Played:

     He had these impossibly dark eyes, the intense kind that looked like they knew what you were thinking, even before you did. We both looked away so fast that I had to wonder if we'd eyelocked at all.