Evil eye
Also called nazar, mati
A widespread belief; the blue glass bead is Ottoman and after
Hellenic symbolsEvil eye meaning
The evil eye is the belief that an envious look can cause harm. The blue concentric glass bead, the nazar, is a Turkish and Mediterranean amulet meant to stare back. The belief is older and wider than the bead.
A look that harms, and a glass eye that looks back.
Where it comes from
Greeks called it baskania, Romans fascinatio, Arabic speakers al-ʿayn. The idea shows up from the Mediterranean to South Asia: praise attracts envy, and envy acts. The blue-and-white glass disk associated with the word nazar is an Ottoman glassmaking form that the twentieth-century souvenir trade carried everywhere. It is one technology for the belief, not the belief’s origin. The hamsa is a hand with a related job. The wedjat is an Egyptian myth with a different one.
Hellenic
Envy as a force
Classical texts treat the eye as something that can overshoot. Amulets, spitting, and phrases that deflect praise are the practical side. You do not need a theory of rays to see the social fact: people fear being looked at too happily.
Modern
The bead went traveling
A nazar on a laptop sticker is the glass form after tourism and manufacturing. It still means “against envy” to many buyers. It does not mean the wearer has joined an Ottoman guild. The wedjat and the Eye of Providence are other eyes. Staring is not one tradition.
Near this
Sources
- Greek baskania and Latin fascinatio
- Ottoman and Turkish nazar boncuğu, the blue glass bead
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.
symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.