How to translate 눈빛은 elegantly?

Question

`눈빛은` roughly translates to "the look of the eye"; partially, `눈빛` means look/glance (noun) It's used when saying "sharp eye glances", e.g. 그댈 보는 나의 눈빛은 Literally, it means "you looking my nunbich-eun" It loosely translates to "the way I look at you" but when we translate it that way we lose the `눈빛은` (nunbich-eun). Another example is from [Naver](http://endic.naver.com/search.nhn?sLn=kr&searchOption=all&query=%EB%88%88%EB%B9%9B%EC%9D%80) 그의 눈빛은 적개심으로 가득 차 있었다 His eyes were full of hostility. The `눈빛은` somehow got translated to "eyes" but the scientific and proper word to refer to the human organ eyes is just `눈` without the `빛은`. **How to translate 눈빛은 elegantly?** **Is it an untranslatable word?**

Answer 1

눈빛 is formed with 눈(eye) and 빛(light).

A few example words that include "빛" are as below:

햇빛 해 sun + 빛

하늘빛 하늘 sky + 빛

물빛 물 water + 빛

얼굴빛 얼굴 face + 빛

You can translate the above words as sunlight, color of sky, color of water, facial expression but in Korean, they mean slightly more emotional than color itself. (It embraces the feeling of each word. warm, bright, openness, shiny, ...etc depends on what you are talking about.)

빛 means "light", "lighting" but the above compound words convey expanded feeling of certain condition due to the nature.

Now, let's look at 눈빛.

People's eyes express various emotions - happy, affectionate, caring, sad, angry, revengeful, worried, nervous... you name it.

So when you see 눈빛 in a sentence, you have to understand the person's emotion and then translate it accordingly.

그댈 보는 나의 눈빛은... '그대' is a poetic, favorable term referring to 'you' - it probably means 'lovely' 'full of love/affection' kind of warm glance

그의 눈빛은 적개심으로 가득차 있었다. His eyes were glaring with hostility.

눈빛 can be as versatile as human emotion.

By the way, '은' from '눈빛은' is a particle. It has no meaning but only function of 'explanation', 'isolation',...etc

Answer 2

The way you look at ( a person)

It could be romantic, cold and warm.