Right eye: good news
In many European and Chinese traditions a twitching right eye brings good news or a welcome visitor.
Body superstition
Eye twitching
Eye twitching: a twitching right eye brings good news or a welcome visitor; a twitching left eye brings bad news. First recorded: Antiquity; Greek treatises on twitching cataloged body omens. That makes it more than 1,500 years old — joint 2nd oldest of the 45 superstitions we have dated.
- Earliest record
- Antiquity see the history below
- Written down in
- 1867 Harland and Wilkinson, Lancashire
Record: John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore (London: Frederick Warne, 1867).
When it actually starts
How old is this one
First recorded
Antiquity; Greek treatises on twitching cataloged body omens
That makes it
more than 1,500 years old
Rank by age
Joint 2nd oldest of 45 dated here
Category
Body
Reading involuntary twitches was a recognized branch of omen-reading in the ancient Mediterranean, with lists matching each part of the body to an outcome. The eye was singled out because it is the organ of seeing, so a twitch there was taken as a sign of something about to be seen or heard.
1 of the dated superstitions here were written down earlier and 32 later, while 11 share its date.
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Primary source
As it was written down in 1867
“a ringing in the ears; shooting of the eyes; throwing down, or spilling the salt; putting on the left shoe first; lucky and unlucky days; pouring melted lead into water; stopping blood by means of charms; the use of waxen images; enchanted girdles; and lovers’ knots, are all observed and explained almost exactly as amongst the Greeks and Romans.”
John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, Lancashire Folk-Lore (London: Frederick Warne, 1867) — read the original text.
Harland and Wilkinson list the “shooting of the eyes” among omens that Lancashire shared with ancient Greece and Rome.
The versions people follow
What exactly is believed
Left eye: bad news
A twitching left eye warns of bad news, tears or an argument.
Reversed by gender in India
In India a twitching right eye is lucky for men and the left eye lucky for women.
Chinese hours
Chinese almanacs read eye twitches by the two-hour period of the day, with a different outcome for each.
How the bad luck is traditionally undone
Chinese folk practice places a small piece of white paper on the twitching eyelid to cancel a bad omen.
Where it lives today
Eyelid twitching is usually benign and linked to tiredness, stress, caffeine or eye strain; it is still widely read as an omen in South and East Asia.
What people say
A twitching right eye brings good news or a welcome visitor; a twitching left eye brings bad news.What is going on
Eyelid twitching, called myokymia, is almost always harmless and usually follows tiredness, stress, caffeine or long screen use. A twitch that lasts for weeks, spreads to other parts of the face or makes the eye close should be checked by a doctor.Where it applies. The sides swap across cultures. A common Chinese saying runs "left eye jumps for wealth, right eye for disaster", and in India a twitching right eye is traditionally lucky for men and the left for women.
Nearest in age
Eye twitching is joint 2nd oldest of the 45 dated superstitions here. Of those, 3 date from 1900 or later and 14 predate the common era.
First-recorded dates are the earliest documented appearance in written sources, not the earliest possible origin — an unrecorded practice can be older. How the dating works and where it is uncertain →
Sources
Statements of fact on this page were checked against these sources in October 2026. How we choose and check sources: editorial policy.
Cite this page
AstroHot. “Eye Twitching Superstition: Origin and Meaning.” Accessed October 28, 2026. https://astrohot.com/superstitions/eye-twitching/
For Wikipedia
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