apple of eye

apple of eye

Meaning

• the person of whom one is extremely fond, favorite, loving
• most favourite person
• someone most cherished, above others
• someone or something that is very precious

Example Sentences

1. She has three children, but her youngest son is the apple of her eye.
2. While my grandmother loved all of us very much, my younger brother was the apple of her eye.
3. Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye.
4. She was a very charming little girl and a very bright student, and was the apple of her teachers' eyes.
5. He loved his daughter very much. She was the apple of his eye.
6. He said that Kelly was the apple of his eye. He could not imagine living without her.
7. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
8. The young couple had a beautiful little son, and he was the apple of their eyes.
9. He was the apple of her eye, and she promised to take care of him for as long as she could.
10. My granddaughter is the apple of my eye, said the old man, lovingly looking at her playing in the distance.

Origin
The phrase originally had anatomical reference and was used to denote the central aperture of the eye. The expression first appeared in Old English in 885 AD, in a work attributed to King Aelfred (the Great) of Wessex, titled Gregory's Pastoral Care. It was later used by Shakespeare in 1600 in his play A Midsummer Night's Dream and also appeared in English translations of the Bible in 1611. However, the phrase was more commonly used after it appeared in Sir Walter Scott's novel Old Mortality in 1816.