Not a Dry Eye in the House - Theatre Etymology - Part 15

If somebody says there's not a dry eye in the house, that tends to mean that everybody was crying. However, usually not every single person was crying. The phrase is mostly used exaggeratively when most people or at least most people that are seen, are crying at a performance. This is usually in response to something on stage that is extremely sad or extremely happy that it makes people cry.

There does not seem to be a record of when the phrase was first used or first printed. However, it is obvious that eyes are wet when people cry. So, if everybody is crying, that would make every eye be wet and there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house.

The word dry when used as an adjective seems to come from the Old English word dryge which comes from the Proto-Germanic word draugiz. These words can be compared to the Middle Low German word dröge, the Middle Dutch word druge, the Dutch word droog, the Old High German word trucchon, the German word trocken, and the Old Norse word, draugr. However, the Proto-German word draugiz seems to come from the Proto-Indo-European prefix dreug.

When the word eye is used as a noun, it comes from before 900. It seems that it is from the Middle English word eie or ie or the Old English word ēge which is a variant of ēage. This is a cognate of the German word Auge which is then akin to the Latin word oculus, the Greek word ṓps, and the Sanskrit word akṣi.

Then, the same origin for house is in the post for Bring the House Down.

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