The favorite object of a person's love or affection: “Linda was fond of all the horses on the ranch, but the little palomino was the apple of her eye.”
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
apple of one's eye
Special favorite, beloved person or thing, as in The youngest was the apple of his father's eye. This term, which rests on the ancients' idea that the eye's pupil is apple-shaped and that eyes are particularly precious, appears in the Bible (Deuteronomy 32:10). [Early 1600s]