Why do we say "The apple of my eye"?

Meaning:

The apple of one’s eye is something or someone that’s cherished.

Background:

Originally the “apple of the eye” was an anatomical term, referring literally to the eye’s aperture, aka the pupil. It’s believed the word derives from the Anglo-Saxon “arppel,” which meant both apple and pupil. At the time the pupil was thought to be a round, solid object like an apple, hence the connection.

The phrase is one of the older ones still popular today, dating back at least 1400 years. Its first known appearance in English was in a work by King Alfred of Wessex in 885 CE – a translation of Cura pastoralis (Pastoral Care, 590 CE) by Pope Gregory the Great. Interestingly, Aelfred’s translation was the first time the word “apple” appeared in English in print in any context.

It’s also used several places in the King James version of the Bible (1611), specifically in the Old Testament:

- Deuteronomy 32:10: 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.
- Psalm 17:8: Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.
- Proverbs 7:2: Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
- Lamentations 2:18: Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

The phrase employed in these verses is ‘iyshown 'ayin. It may mean “dark of the eye,” but many feel ‘iyshown is the diminutive of the word for man - 'iysh – which would make the translation closer to “little man of the eye” – which kind of makes sense. Regardless, the scholars and clergymen responsible for the KJV translated ‘iyshown to the world “apple,” and so it remains in most versions of the Bible available today. In these verses the idiom can be read either as the physical center of the eye or as the object of adoration.

William Shakespeare used the term as well, although he was clearly referring to its definition as a part of one’s anatomy. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairy king Oberon instructs his servant Puck to drop a love potion in a young man’s eyes:

Flower of this purple dye,
Hit with Cupid's archery,
Sink in apple of his eye.
When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously
As the Venus of the sky.
When thou wak'st, if she be by.
Beg of her for remedy.

Surprisingly, the idiom actually wasn’t common until the early 19th century. In 1816, it appeared in Sir Walter Scott’s novel, Old Mortality (“Poor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye.”) At that point, the phrase entered popular culture and has been widely used since.

More expressions and their source

Challenge yourself with BookBrowse Wordplays