see eye to eye

• see eye-to-eye

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

see eye to eye (third-person singular simple present sees eye to eye, present participle seeing eye to eye, simple past saw eye to eye, past participle seen eye to eye)

1. (idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) To agree, especially in every respect; to concur; to get along.
   • 1899 May, Rudyard Kipling, “The Flag of Their Country”, in Stalky & Co., London: Macmillan & Co., published 1899, →OCLC, page 206:

     But the friend merely spoke of his friend; and since no two people in the world see eye to eye, the picture conveyed to Collinson was inaccurate.

   • 1920 March – 1921 February, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “The Bomb”, in Indiscretions of Archie, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, publishers […], published 1921, →OCLC, page 52:

     In the course of their professional career they did not often hear their superior make many suggestions with which they saw eye to eye, but he had certainly, in their opinion, spoken a mouthful now.

   • 1962 March, “Talking of Trains: The not-so-free hand”, in Modern Railways, page 147:

     Plainly, the Government and Dr. Beeching have not seen eye to eye, to say the least, on railway wages.

   • 2006 March 30, Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates, “What's Behind the Ground Zero Stalemate”, in Time:

     Furthermore, Silverstein and Pataki never completely saw eye to eye on the master plan, disagreeing on such issues as the choice of architect.

This is usually used in a negative form, for example, “we don’t see eye to eye” and “they have difficulty seeing eye to eye”.

• beg to differ
• on the same wavelength