Englishsee through something or someone
Meaning: To not be fooled by a false front or disguise that someone presents in order to mislead; to understand the true nature of someone or something.
Example: “The children saw through their father's fake surprise immediately.”
Origin: The figurative sense of "seeing through" someone or something — perceiving the real truth hidden beneath a deceptive surface — is documented from the 1500s, building on a much older, universal metaphor equating clear understanding with clear vision. The image works exactly the way looking through a pane of transparent glass does: an untrained or credulous eye stops at the surface, taking an appearance or a lie at face value, while a sharper, more skeptical one looks past that surface entirely to whatever real intention or fact lies behind it.
More English idioms
- shot in the dark A guess, often wild or based on little information.
- sleep like a log To sleep so soundly that noise doesn't wake the person.
- let someone or something slip through someone's fingers To lose something because one takes too much time to consider the situation.
- slow burn To be quietly angry.
- slow off the mark Slow to understand or react.
- snowball's chance in hell No chance at all.
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Words that look familiar in another language but mean something else entirely.
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