A darkly humorous slang phrase for two black eyes — the kind you get after a serious fight. The joke plays on the idea of someone looking like they're wearing sunglasses due to two swollen, darkened eye sockets. Like many 'Irish X' constructions in old American slang, it emerged from a cultural environment that wasn't always kind to Irish immigrants, though it's been used self-deprecatingly within Irish-American communities too. It's largely dated today but pops up in classic noir fiction and old crime dramas.
He walked into work Monday morning sporting a pair of Irish sunglasses and refused to say a word about the weekend.
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(slang) Two black eyes .
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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