From Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
a sight for sore eyes
informal
a way of saying that you are very pleased to see someone or that you think someone is very attractive:
“You’re a sight for sore eyes!”
Translations of “a sight for sore eyes”
in Chinese (Traditional) 樂於看到的人, 極有吸引力的人…
(Definition of a sight for sore eyes from the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
From Urban Dictionary:
sight for sore eyes
A sight for sore eyes translates into “the sight of you makes my eyes all better”, and means that you like looking at that sight.
“Woah, that babe over there is a sight for sore eyes.”
by Samantha Esposito March 31, 2007
From The Free Dictionary:
sight for sore eyes
Fig. a welcome sight. “Oh, am I glad to see you here! You’re a sight for sore eyes.” “I’m sure hungry. This meal is a sight for sore eyes.”
See also: eye, sight, sore
From phrases.org.uk:
A sight for sore eyes
A welcome sight; someone or something you are glad to see.
Origin
This phrase was first recorded by Jonathan Swift, in A complete collection of genteel and ingenious conversation, 1738:
“The Sight of you is good for sore Eyes.”
The title of the work suggests that it was in use prior to his writing it down. The currently used version of the phrase was first recorded by William Hazlitt, in New Monthly Magazine, 1826:
“Garrick’s name was proposed on condition he should act in tragedy and comedy… What a sight for sore eyes that would be!”
That’s all pretty straightforward. The rise of the World Wide Web has given this phrase a new lease of life. ‘Sight’, ‘site’ and ‘cite’ form one of the small number of three-word homophone groups, that is, words that sound the same but are spelled differently. Another three-word example is ‘you’, ‘yew’ and ‘ewe’.
A quick scan of the Web courtesy of Google (Feb 2012) shows these hits:
“sight for sore eyes” – 1,550,000
“site for sore eyes” – 681,000
“cite for sore eyes” – 88,700Top of the list for the latter two are web sites selling optical supplies and literary citations respectively, so they have some excuse. Many of the others are just mis-spellings.
My eyes tell me that I’ve cited enough definitions of “Sight for Sore Eyes” from other sites. I shall now cite my own swift definition, in this here site:
Sights for sore eyes
Images that gladden the heart, mind, and soul, particularly precious after experiences of pain, illness, or other negative experiences.
Yesterday, after I published this flu-ish post, my fever went up and my eyes, muscles, appetite, and mind felt sore. Very sore.
Throughout the last 24 hours, encouraging comments here at WordPress (and other sites, like Facebook) have been sights for my sore eyes.
I shall now cite three recently seen sights for sore eyes, from this Boston USA site:
To celebrate my being “normal” (at least temporarily), here are some sounds for sore ears:
(Mozart’s “The Magic Flute Overture” is here at this YouTube site.)
To conclude these sights for sore eyes, many thanks to all the sites I cited above, to Mozart and other creators of sounds for sore ears, and to all those who have given me sights for sore eyes — including you (of course!) for seeing this site, today.