evil eye, the

The  power  of  being  able  to  inflict  harm  at  a  glance. This age-old   superstition—the   Roman   poet  Vergil   speaks   of   it   bewitching lambs—is in modern times expressed figuratively and sometimes ironically. Edward Bulwer-Lytton used it in The Last Days of Pompeii (1834): “‘He cer- tainly possesses the gift of the evil eye,’ said Clodius of Arbaces the Egypt- ian.” As for a modern jocular example: “Where house plants are concerned, I seem to have the evil eye.”