see stars
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to feel dizzy or disoriented
Literally: perceiving celestial bodies
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
In the third division, Hereford United were seeing stars at Gillingham after letting in 2 early goals.
Similarly, light tries to travel in a straight line, but the curvature of space - time near the sun causes the light from distant stars to be bent if it passes near the sun.
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 “see stars” mean?
to feel dizzy or disoriented Literally: perceiving celestial bodies
Is “see stars” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.