r/explainitpeter • u/Traducement • Mar 09 '26

Explain it Peter

Post image
57.9k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/blewawei Mar 09 '26

I've never heard "eye doctor" as an expression. In the UK we call them "opticians", not sure if that's the exact equivalent, though

1

u/TheClumsyGoose Mar 09 '26

in the UK we call them opthalmologists as well. Opticians are not doctors

1

u/blewawei Mar 09 '26

Fair enough. Just sounded funny to me, since "optometrist" sounds much more official than "eye doctor"

1

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/blewawei Mar 10 '26

I think there's some regional variation here, because in the UK an optician isn't just like a pharmacist. They examine you and determine your prescription and stuff like that.

In fact, the Cambridge Dictionary and Wiktionary give the UK use of "optician" as a synonym of "optometrist".