apple of someone's eye

PIE word *h₂ébōl From Middle English appel of the eie (“pupil of the eye; cornea; (figurative) something highly valued”), from Old English æppel on the ēagan, used in biblical texts (Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalm 17:8; Proverbs 7:2, Lamentations 2:18, and Zechariah 2:8; compare the quotations) to designate the pupil of the eye as something precious to be protected. The use of "apple" in English is apparently due to the pupil or cornea being thought of as a solid, globular object.

• "Sara was never the same after losing her daughter, the apple of her eye."
• "Kepe me as the apple of an eye, defende me vnder the ſhadowe of thy wynges."
• "If you touche him [Philip II of Spain] in the Indies, you touche the apple of his eye; for take away his treasure, which is neruus belli [the sinews of war], and which he hath almoste oute of his West Indies, his olde bandes of souldiers will soone be dissolved, his purposes defeated, his power and strengthe diminished, his pride abated, and his tyranie utterly suppressed."
• "For the Lords portion is his people: Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a deſert land, and in the wasſe howling wilderneſſe: Hee ledde him about, he inſtructed him, hee kept him as the apple of his eye."
• "[P]oor Richard was to me as an eldest son, the apple of my eye, and my destined heir; but he died in his duty, and I—I— […] I live to avenge him."
• "It lost, moreover, on its very first evening, one of the very apples of its eye in the removal of Mr. Brown's grand heifer, who was the gold medallist of her sex. She was seized with distemper, and at once removed to an adjacent stall."
• "You are the sunshine of my life / That's why I'll always be around / You are the apple of my eye / Forever you'll stay in my heart"
• "You see the apple of your eye, stackin' peaches in a five foot pile / Just waitin' for some guy to come, and take her rollin' down the aisle"
• "She's got all the friends that money can buy / She's the apple of her daddy's eye"
• "I hoped that he had truly loved us, that we had honestly been the apples of his eye."

• apple of the eye
• eye-apple