The Eye as Metaphor in Urdu

Languages and cultures shape each other. In Urdu and other languages spoken in Pakistan, the eye is so much more than an organ. It also represents sight, both literal and metaphorical, envy, and feelings.

The most commonly used words for the eye and eyesight in Urdu are ankh, nazar, and chasm. In literary or formal Urdu, deed is also frequently used, which comes from the Persian root word, deedan (to see).

To start with, some everyday phrases used colloquially, we have:

- Nazrein jhukana: Bowing down the eyes (out of shame, or haya)

- Nazrein larana, or ankh matakka: romance (literally, fight of the eyes)

- Noor-e-nazar: the light of my eyes (the beloved)

- Nazar-e-bad: the evil eye

- Nazar lagna: being afflicted with the evil eye

- Nazar utarna: warding off the evil eye

- Ankhein khul jana: a realisation (literally, the eyes being opened)

- Ankhon dekha haal, or chashmdeed gawah: being an eye-witness

- Nazrein churana: avoiding eye contact (literally, stealing the eye)

- Khushamdeed: welcome (literally, happy + arrival + seen - it is pleasing that you have arrived/been seen

- Gehri nazar dalna: to get into the nitty gritty of something, to contemplate (literally, to cast a deep eye)

- Nuqta e nazar: point of view

Other expressions related to the eyes, or the sense of sight, in Urdu include:

1. Aina-e-Nazar: the mirror of perception

2. Aali-Nazar: high-minded, someone with exalted views

3. Ahl-e-Nazar: admirers of beauty

4. Baadi-ul-Nazar: at first glance

5. Bareek Nazar: a critic

6. Faraib-e-Nazar: an illusion

7. Hadd-e-Nazar: range of visibility

8. Aitbaar-e-Faraib-e-Nazar: trusting the deception of glances

9. Mahv-e-Nazar: to be engrossed in watching a spectacle

10. Nazarbaaz: a magician, the one skilled at tricks of the hand

11. Nazar-e-Saani: to revisit

12. Nazarkash/Nazargir: attractive or seductive

13. Azraq chasm: blue-eyed

14. Ba chashm-e-nam/tar: teary-eyed

15. Bulbul chasm: a type of silk with diamond-shaped patterns

16. Chashm-e-Baatin: the inner eye

17. Chashm-e-dil: the eye of the heart

18. Chashma: a pair of glasses (it can also mean spring)

19. Chasm-o-Chiragh: the scion of a family

20. Gardish-e-Chasm: eye movement, a wink, which conveys a message.

21. Shokh chashm: playful or feminine-eyed, also used to refer to a gay disposition

22. Zard chashm: yellow-eyed - a bird of prey

23. Chasmposhi: to turn the eyes away, ignoring someone.

24. Chashm e Ghoul: eyes of a female ghoul, a light seen from far away at night and imagined as the eyes of a ghoul

25. Chasm-e-be-aab: immodest (literally, eyes with no shame)

26. Deed na shunid: unseen and unheard of, now often borrowed into colloquial Urdu as “na dekha na suna”

27. Qabil-e-deed: something worth watching

28. Hasrat-e-deed: desire to see

29. Chashmdeed gawah: eyewitness

30. Deedbaazi: oggling at someone