more than meets the eye

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

There is more to something than initially appears

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Có nhiều hơn những gì ban đầu nhìn thấy

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: additional things visible
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The plot of the movie was more than meets the eye

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “more than meets the eye” mean?

There is more to something than initially appears Literally: additional things visible

Is “more than meets the eye” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.