Meaning
Unsleepingly watchful - vigilant to the point that nothing escapes notice. The adjective praises the perfect guard whose eyes are never all closed at once, whether detective, editor, nurse, or exam-room proctor. Literary and usually capitalized; it can praise vigilance or imply oppressive surveillance, so tone decides. The peacock's tail is the standing memorial. Regional use: General English; classical origin.
Origin
Argus Panoptes - all-seeing Argus - was the many-eyed watchman of Greek myth, set by Hera to guard Io, the heifer-form of a nymph Zeus wanted; a Hesiodic fragment describes him with four eyes looking every way, on whom sleep never fell, and the fifth-century literalists simply gave him a hundred, some always open. Hermes, sent to free Io, disguised himself a shepherd, lulled every eye asleep with story and music, and killed him - earning the permanent epithet Argeiphontes, Argus-slayer - whereupon Hera set the hundred eyes in the peacock's tail, which is why it wears them still. His name became proverbial for unsleeping watchfulness, whence the adjective: English attests it before 1500, Argus-like follows in 1597, and Henry Finck's 1899 study complains of the Argus-eyed surveillance to which women are subjected. Naturalists keep him working: the great argus pheasant and an eight-eyed-spotted monitor lizard both carry the name.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- Argus-eyed vigilance
- Argus-like
- the eyes of Argus
Usage Examples
- Nothing got past the Argus-eyed proctor at the back of the hall, not even the semaphore.
- Her Argus-eyed subediting caught the transposed decades in the founder's birth year.
- The regulator's Argus-eyed review found the fund's lacuna in exactly the footnote it had feared.