Meaning
In the imagination or memory, as something visualised rather than actually seen; used for mental pictures, replayed memories and envisioned scenes. Neutral to slightly literary register, essentially unchanged in sense since Shakespeare. Neutral to mildly literary; at home in reflective or descriptive writing about visualising and remembering. Regional use: General English (Shakespearean origin).
Origin
In Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 2 (c. 1600-01), when Horatio says he saw the old king, Hamlet replies that he still sees him: 'In my mind's eye, Horatio.' The Folger text confirms the exchange. The Phrase Finder shows the expression was not new: Chaucer had the underlying idea around 1390 in The Man of Law's Tale ('thilke eyen of his mynde'), and the exact words 'mind's eye' appear in a 1577 letter by Hubert Languet, later printed in his correspondence with Sir Philip Sidney (1845). The verdict is popularisation rather than coinage, but it is Hamlet's use, as the Phrase Finder puts it, that made the phrase generally known.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- in her mind's eye
- in his mind's eye
- in the mind's eye
- the mind's eye
Usage Examples
- I can still see, in my mind's eye, the kitchen table at my grandparents' house.
- In the mind's eye of the architect, the courtyard was already finished and planted.
- She walks through each presentation in her mind's eye the night before giving it.