Eyepatch
small patch that is worn in front of an eye
An eyepatch is a small patch that is worn in front of one eye. It may be a cloth patch attached around the head by an elastic band or by a string, an adhesive bandage, or a plastic device which is clipped to a pair of glasses. It is often worn by people to cover a lost, infected, or injured eye, but it also has a therapeutic use in children for the treatment of amblyopia. Eyepatches used to block light while sleeping are referred to as a sleep mask.
An eyepad or eye pad is a soft medical dressing that can be applied over an eye to protect it. It is not necessarily the same as an eyepatch.
History
In the years before advanced medicine and surgery, eyepatches were common for people who had a lost or injured eye. They were particularly prevalent among members of dangerous occupations, such as soldiers and sailors who could lose an eye in battle. While stereotypically associated with pirates, there is no evidence to suggest the historical accuracy of eye patch wearing pirates before several popular novels of the 19th century (see Association with pirates below).
Medical uses
Amblyopia
Eye patching is used in the orthoptic management of children at risk of lazy eye (amblyopia), especially strabismic or anisometropic amblyopia.
The public source identifies “Eyepatch” as small patch that is worn in front of an eye. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eyepatch, small and patch.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q760330. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eyepatch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.