cry one's eyes out, to
cry one's eyes out
Also, cry one's heart out. Weep inconsolably. For example, Wendy was so homesick that she was crying her eyes out, or At funerals Ruth always cries her heart out. [c. 1700]
See also: cry, eye, out
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
cry one's eyes out, to
To weep or mourn excessively. This hyperbole— how could weeping actually cause eyes to fall out?—dates back at least to the early eighteenth century. It appears in Colley Cibber’s 1705 play, The Careless Husband (1.1), “I could cry my eyes out,” and also in Jonathan Swift’s Polite Conversation (1738). In the nineteenth century it was sometimes altered to crying one’s heart out, especially in popular romantic novels such as Margaret Oliphant’s Joyce (1888).
See also: cry, eye
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- cried all the way to the bank, he/she
- weep (one's) heart out
- wept
- for crying in a bucket
- shed a tear
- tear (one's) heart out
- burst out crying
- weep buckets
- water (one's) cheeks
- water one’s cheeks