The phrase "apple of my eye" originally referred to a part of the eye, not a person.

If someone is the "apple of your eye," they are especially precious to you.

The phrase is more than 1,000 years old, but it originally had nothing to do with romance.

In Old English, the "apple of the eye" referred to the pupil, the dark center of the eye. Because eyesight was so valuable and the eye was carefully protected, the expression gradually became associated with something deeply cherished.

The phrase appears in some of the oldest surviving English writings and later in several English translations of the Bible, helping it survive for centuries.

Over time, the meaning expanded beyond anatomy. If someone was the "apple of your eye," that person became someone you treasured above all others.

More than a thousand years after it first appeared, people are still using the same phrase to describe the people they value most.