# "Up to my eyeballs in debt" origination **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 12, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739 "2013-03-12T18:23:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rudiger\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rudiger\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rudiger_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/1 "2013-03-12T18:23:55Z")
I see the phrase “Up to [my, our, your, their, etc.] eyeballs in debt” used a lot on this message board and elsewhere on the innernets. As far as I can tell, the term originated in a Lending Tree commercial around 2005. It’s now the go-to expression when talking about personal debt and it seemingly originated with a fairly boring commercial. Does anyone remember the expression being used before the commercial came out? I don’t mean just “up to my eyeballs in \_\_\_”, I’m asking specifically about debt. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/2 "2013-03-12T18:36:26Z")
My WAG is it’s been used ever since people had both eyeballs and debt. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/3 "2013-03-12T19:34:45Z")
My WAG is the the expression “Up to \_\_\_ eyeballs in …” much precedes the existence of financial debt. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/4 "2013-03-12T20:27:13Z")
It’s definitely way older than that commercial. I personally remember it as far back as the 1970s. Searching on google books I found a reference to it in a 1959 issue of Life magazine. > [@](#): > > The man who is in debt up to his eyeballs hardly considers himself a big saver just because he has managed to reduce the debt by $500 in the past year. Life - Jan 15, 1959, page 120 I’ll see if I can find an earlier one than that. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/5 "2013-03-12T20:53:21Z")
I didn’t find any with “eyeballs” earlier than 1959, but there are plenty with “eyes”. This is the oldest one I’ve been able to find. > [@](#): > > Stay: first, Pizarro must be hence ejected, "We’re not so rich my friend as you expected ; No penny from our coffers could you get, Moreover, we’re up to our eyes in debt. Piz. Not rich, then we at once our arms lay down. Ata Pizarro; a Spanish rolla-king Peruvian drama: a burlesque, in one act - Page 36 Charles James Collins - 1856 And if you are willing to allow a bit more variation: > [@](#): > > its liquidation being expired some weeks — and I most cursedly out at the elbows, and up to my ears — ay, by the lord Harry ! over head and all in debt. I am come for the purpose of having this matter settled Woman’s wit & man’s wisdom: or, Intrigue - Page 25 Henrietta Rouvière Mosse - 1827 ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/6 "2013-03-12T21:19:40Z")
I’ve always assumed it was a euphemism for “up to my ass in debt”. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/7 "2013-03-12T21:25:15Z")
Try searching again and leaving out ‘eye’. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/8 "2013-03-12T21:44:20Z")
[NGram](http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=eyeballs+in+debt&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=) shows it started being using in the mid-1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/9 "2013-03-13T02:06:20Z")
“Up to his ass in debt” wasn’t in print, at least, until after “up to his eyeballs in debt” had already appeared in print: > **[Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ass%2Bin%2Bdebt&year_start=1800&year_end=2013&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=)** > > Google Books Ngram Viewer “Ears” in this expression seems to be far older. To be precise, the phrase was “over his head and ears in debt”: > **[Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ears%2Bin%2Bdebt&year_start=1600&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=)** > > Google Books Ngram Viewer The first one that I see in the Google Ngram list comes from 1673: > **[A French and English dictionary](https://books.google.com/books?id=9EI_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PT418&dq=%22ears%2Bin%2Bdebt%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QN4_UejYN7SA0AHpz4CIBg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwADgo)** ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/10 "2013-03-13T07:24:07Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I’ve always assumed it was a euphemism for “up to my ass in debt”. But that’s only half the debt. I think eyes/eye balls isn’t a euphemism for anything and that it is supposed to evoke the feeling of standing in water that very nearly over your head. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/11 "2013-03-13T07:41:44Z")
The OED has “up to the eyeballs” and variants as a colloquialism meaning “deeply, totally, to an extreme degree”, with citations dating back to 1912. That’s a reference to drunkenness(“saturated to the eye-balls”), and then there’s “poxed up to the eyeballs” from 1933. There’s no citation with a financial sense until 1986 (“borrowers who are wary of gearing themselves up to the eyeballs”). Like Richard Pearse, I see no reason to understand this euphemistically. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/12 "2013-03-13T11:12:56Z")
There are uses going back to the eighteenth and even the seventeenth centuries of the phrase “to be over one’s head and ears in X,” where sometimes this was meant literally and sometimes figurately: > **[Google Books Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=over%2Bhead%2Band%2Bears%2Bin&year_start=1600&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=)** > > Google Books Ngram Viewer One use of this phrase was “over one’s head and ears in debt.” Apparently in the early twentieth century this mutated into “up to one’s eyeballs” and one use of it was “up to one’s eyeballs in debt.” ---
**Author:** ![Rudiger\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@Rudiger\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rudiger_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/13 "2013-03-13T13:12:00Z")
Thanks for all the replies. I’d heard the phrase “up to his eyeballs in \_\_” and “up to his ass in \_\_\_” growing up, but never for _debt_. I guess the term has been around for decades at least, though. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2013, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/up-to-my-eyeballs-in-debt-origination/652739/14 "2013-03-13T13:18:28Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > One use of this phrase was “over one’s head and ears in debt.” Apparently in the early twentieth century this mutated into “up to one’s eyeballs” and one use of it was “up to one’s eyeballs in debt.” Why the repetition? Where did the folks in the 17th century keep their ears?