open someone's eyes
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To make someone aware of a reality or fact they were not aware of
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
làm cho ai đó nhận thức được một thực tế hoặc sự thật
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: to literally open one's eyes
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open our eyes.
Working in the WTN news room for the past four years had opened my eyes to how the media worked.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
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 “open someone's eyes” mean?
To make someone aware of a reality or fact they were not aware of Literally: to literally open one's eyes
Is “open someone's eyes” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.