sight

How is your sight? Do you have good eyes? The word "sight" is used when describing a person’s vision or ability to see. Are you able to see things without wearing glasses? Then you have good eyesight.

A person who loses his or her sight becomes blind and needs to use a walking stick or a guide dog in order to get around:

She’s blind. She lost her sight.

We also use the word "sight" when describing a thing that you see:

Tom	a famous place
When Tom went on vacation in Egypt, he visited many interesting sights. He did a lot of sightseeing. (sightseeing = visiting famous places and/or taking photos)

There are some expressions, phrases, and idioms that use this word:

• The golfer hit the ball out of sight. (out of sight = a long distance.)
• Our goals are within sight. (within sight = a short distance of a short time.)
• You’re a sight for sore eyes. (I’m happy to see you.)
• The party we went to last night was out of sight. (out of sight = very, very good. This phrase was popular in the 1960s, so not everyone uses it but you might hear it.)
• Out of sight, out of mind. (If I don’t see something, I don’t need to think about it or worry about it.)
• They’ve lost sight of the things that are really important in life. (lose sight = forget about or ignore)

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This page was first published on September 22, 2012. It was updated on April 7, 2016.