In sight of vs. in the sight of (2025)

Hello every one:
I came across the following sentence in a novel by the name of “On the Floor”:
"Teenage boys murdered in sight of their mothers and sisters, their bodies left on the street as garbage."

On the Floor: A Novel - Page 22
But according to A Collection of Confusable Phrases by Yuri Dolgopolov, It should be in the sight of and not in sight of.

Do you guys agree?

Thanks

natkretep said:

High on grammar, is the sentence a normal sentence in the narrative, or is what you quoted meant to be notes or some sort of quick summary? Articles are often left out in such situations. If it is a normal part of the narrative, I agree with Beryl that it's a mistake.

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So, the sentence should read:

Teenage boys murdered in the sight of their mothers and sisters.

From A Collection of Confusable Phrases :

in the sight of someone = near enough to be seen by a person.
"One man that was convicted of hiding Russians was brutally killed in the sight of townspeople"

Hullo, everyone.

Isn't "in the sight of" an alternative to "in the opinion of", "in the judgment of" (e.g., "We're all equal in the sight of God")? (i.e., a figurative sense of the expression).
And aren't "in sight", "into sight", "out of sight" expressions used in the non-figurative sense of " in one's view", "into one's view", etc.?

GS

High on grammar said:

I came across the following sentence in a novel by the name of “On the Floor”:
"Teenage boys murdered in sight of their mothers and sisters, their bodies left on the street as garbage."

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This is not a sentence because it does not have a main verb. It could be a headline, or an item in a list, or an extract from a telegram, or something else. We need to know which before we can guess at why the article is omitted. However, I would say that sight is often uncountable in the sense of area that someone can see: This island is within sight of the mainland.

Sorry Beryl I spotted the unhelpful link in #1 but not the helpful one in #5. I think this is not an example of headline or telegraphic style, and just an uncountable use of the word sight. The OED lists this use of sight without article separately:

10. a. The range or field of one's vision; chiefly in phr. out of one's sight...

b. Without article, in the phrase in sight, out of sight. See also out of sight...

1377 Langland Piers Plowman B. xix. 175 Blessed mote þei alle be..That neuere shal se me in siȝte as þow doste nouthe.
...
1717 Pope tr. Homer Iliad III. x. 222 And hostile Troy was ever full in Sight.
1816 Scott Old Mortality viii, in Tales of my Landlord 1st Ser. IV. 154 Bothwell Bridge was at a little distance, and also in sight.
1887 C. Bowen tr. Virgil Aeneid iii. 220 Goats in the meadows feeding without one watchman in sight.

High on grammar said:

A Collection of Confusable Phrases by Yuri Dolgopolov, It should be in the sight of and not in sight of.

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Where did Gospodin Dolgopolov learn his English? http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gospodin

se16teddy said:

This is not a sentence because it does not have a main verb. It could be a headline, or an item in a list, or an extract from a telegram, or something else. We need to know which before we can guess at why the article is omitted. However, I would say that sight is often uncountable in the sense of area that someone can see: This island is within sight of the mainland.

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within/in sight of is different in meaning from in the sight of and at the sight of.

I'd prefer '...murdered within sight of their mothers' as an alternative to '...murdered in the sight of their mothers.'

Rover

Rover_KE said:

I'd prefer '...murdered within sight of their mothers' as an alternative to '...murdered in the sight of their mothers.'

Rover

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There are 73,600 results for “killed in the sight of” on Google books.

In most of the examples involving “killed in/within sight of”, the noun that is preceded by “of” is a place or thing.
As in “killed in sight of her front door”
“Killed within sight of the towers of the city of Lucknow.”