The oracle-bone scribes drew exactly what they saw: an almond-shaped eye with the pupil resting at its center. For centuries the eye lay on its side, wide like a real eye; only later, as scribes squeezed characters into neat squares, did it roll upright to become today's tall, narrow 目. Look for it inside other characters and you will often find someone looking: 看 shades an eye with a hand to watch the distance, and 眼, the everyday word for eye, still carries 目 on its left.
A piece of culture
The eye behind hundreds of characters Once you can spot 目, doors open all through the script. 相 pairs a tree with an eye — someone sizing up a tree, and by extension "appearance" or "mutual"; and 省, which carries 目 within it, means to examine closely and to reflect — the very same character, centuries later, also came to name a Chinese province. You can already read the classical praise for instant clarity, too: 一目了然 — "one eye, and it is understood at once" — four characters built from 一, which you carry already, and this new one.
Use it in a real word
目力
mùlì · muk6 lik6
eyesight — literally "eye-strength"; you met 力 among the farmers of chapter 6