I discovered today that the French equivalent of a black eye is un œil au beurre noir (a black butter eye). It is also known as un œil poché au beurre noir (an eye poached in black butter) or un cocard (a rosette or lesion).
According to L’Internaute.com, the expressions containing beurre noir date from the 19th century, and the butter in question was butter used when poaching eggs which coloured the egg white. The egg yolk was compared to the eye, and the darkened white to the discolouring of a black eye.
In German the equivalent is ein blaues Auge (a blue eye), and in Spanish it’s un ojo morado (a purple/bruised eye).
Are there other ways to refer to this in other languages?
By the way, I don’t remember way the conversation came round to black eyes last night, but none of us have them.
In Russian, it’s “фонарь под глазом”, i.e., a lamp under the eye. It can also be a “fingal” under the eye.
Russian “фингал”, mentioned by Lev above is a curious beast. Its etymology is obscure, some even try to derive it from Ossian’s Fingal epic, but the most probable one is from Arabic فقّاع fugga` “bubble”. Another, now rarely used, Russian word is “бланш”, from French blanche (don’t ask me why, dictionaries where I’ve looked this up don’t give any corresponding French idiom).
Lev, I’m interested to know what you mean by a “fingal” (under the eye). The only two instances of the word that I’m acquainted with are Fingal (the county in Ireland), and Fingal (the mythical hunter warrior; an anglicization of Fionn mac Cumhaill)!