roving eye

• roaming eye

roving eye (plural roving eyes)

1. (idiomatic) Wide-ranging observation of one's surroundings.
   • 1841, Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. 19:

     Mr Codlin had relaxed into a grim smile as his roving eye detected hands going into waistcoat pockets and groping secretly for sixpences.

   • 1916, Joseph A. Altsheler, The Hunters of the Hills, ch. 9:

     His roving eye traveled around the room, and, resting upon the three guests, became inflamed.

   • 2009 July 12, William Grimes, "Paul Hemphill, Chronicler of the South, Dies at 73," New York Times (retrieved 21 March 2018):

     Like Jimmy Breslin, a writer he was often compared to, he turned his roving eye to ordinary Southerners overlooked by most writers and mined the inexhaustible vein of human experience.

2. (idiomatic) The personal characteristic of taking amorous interest in people other than one's own spouse or regular romantic partner.
   • 1858, Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Chivalry, "The Boy and the Mantle" in ch. 4:

     This dame she was new-fangled

     And of a roving eye. . . .

     "Beshrew me," quoth King Arthur,

     "I think thou be'st not true!"

   • 1909, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (translator), Purgatorio by Dante Alighieri, Canto 32:

     But because she her wanton, roving eye

     Turned upon me, her angry paramour

     Did scourge her from her head unto her feet.

   • 2001 April 21, Ellin Martens, "People: Beauty and the Bombshells," Time (retrieved 21 March 2018):

     Miss Israel . . . plans to wear a bulletproof gown created by Tel Aviv designer Galit Levi. . . . The heavy-duty 2001 creation could also keep Miss Israel safe from the roving eye of pageant director Donald Trump.

• flirtation
• philanderer

• overeying