"With eyes wide open" or "with the eyes wide open"?

Question

Consider the following sentence:

This verb literally means "to look fixedly at something or someone with eyes wide open" and it suggests being so attentive to or mesmerized/shocked by what you see that you couldn't look away.

I'm wondering, should it be "with the eyes wide open" or is there a nuanced difference between using and leaving out "the" after "with" in similar phrases?

Definitely not *the [eyes]* in any remotely "normal" context. But dictionary definitions aren't "normal contexts", so it's not out of place in your first sentence above, which is presented as a definition. In other contexts though, if you want to include a determiner it would be perfectly idiomatic to say with his/her* eyes wide open*. — FumbleFingers, Nov 27 '21 at 16:15
There is another meaning of with eyes wide open in the context of going into a situation with eyes wide open Which means going into the situation knowing full well the circumstances and problems it you could face. — Peter Jennings, Nov 27 '21 at 16:56
This might also answer your question: Is it not correct to say "I have the brown eyes" instead of "I have brown eyes", and why? — ColleenV, Dec 03 '21 at 15:21

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 27 '21 at 14:47

1

There is no significance in the inclusion/omission of the. Since you is used later in the sentence, the writer could also have put with your eyes wide open.

answered Nov 27 '21 at 14:47

Kate Bunting

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"With eyes wide open" or "with the eyes wide open"?

1 Answers1