Eyeliner

How to spell eyeliner

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce eyeliner

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eyeliner mean?

1. nounA cosmetic applied as a line along the edge of the eyelids to define or accentuate the eyes.

Eyeliner in a sentence

• She packed a black eyeliner in her makeup bag for the trip.

• The smudged eyeliner left a faint grey mark on her lower lid.

Where does eyeliner come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Eyeliner is a transparent modern compound built from three plain English parts: 'eye', 'line', and the suffix '-er'. The word 'eye' descends from Old English 'eage', a Germanic root shared with German 'Auge' and Dutch 'oog', all meaning the organ of sight. 'Line' comes ultimately from Latin 'linea', a thread or string made of flax (linum), which gave us the sense of a thin drawn mark. The instrument suffix '-er' marks something that performs the action, so an eyeliner is literally a thing that lines the eye. The word itself is a twentieth-century cosmetics coinage, appearing as the practice of drawing a defining line along the lash line became fashionable; the spelling is fully phonetic, with the only mild trap being the doubled 'e' of 'eye' running straight into 'liner'.

How the word is built

• eye (the organ of sight)
• line (a thin mark)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix)