Phrase guide

eye candy

noun · 3 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

A very attractive person or persons, or the salient visible physical attributes thereof.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable

Examples

  • I'm going to the beach to check out some eye candy.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: beaut, beauty, bobby-dazzler, crumpet, dish, vision, dreamboat, eye candy, good looker, looker, lulu, sex on a stick, sex on legs, smoke show, stunna, stunner

Antonyms: biffer, boner-shrinker, bonerkiller, buttface, choad, frump, minger, monkey, monkeyface, munter, pukeface, schlub, stinka, troll, trollface, uggo, ugly duckling

Broader terms: head-turner

2

noun

Meaning 2

Any object or sight with considerable visual appeal.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: broadly, uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: feast for the eyes

Antonyms: none provided

3

noun

Meaning 3

visual images that are pleasing to see but are intellectually undemanding

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

Examples

  • he wanted to put some eye candy on their web site

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: visual percept, visual image

History

Etymology

From eye + candy. Early-1980’s US TV and advertising jargon, perhaps influenced by earlier nose candy (“cocaine”).

Across languages

Translations

16 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Afrikaans: oogpoeding — attractive person
  • Chinese Mandarin: 養眼 /养眼 (yǎngyǎn) — attractive person
  • Chinese Mandarin: 秀色可餐 (xiùsèkěcān) — attractive person
  • Finnish: silmänruoka — attractive person
  • German: Blickfang — attractive person
  • German: Hingucker — attractive person
  • German: Augenweide — attractive person
  • Hebrew: תַּאֲוָה לָעֵינַיִם (taavá la'eináyim) — attractive person
  • Icelandic: augnakonfekt — attractive person
  • Norwegian Bokmål: lekkerbisken — attractive person
  • Persian: چشمنواز (čašm-navâz) — attractive person
  • Portuguese: colírio para os olhos — attractive person
  • Spanish: guaperas — attractive person
  • Swedish: ögongodis — attractive person
  • Thai: อาหารตา (aa-hǎan-dtaa) — attractive person
  • Ottoman Turkish: كوزل (güzel, gözel) — attractive person