to see stars
8
6.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
ver estrellas
- After I bumped my head against the doorframe, I was momentarily disoriented and saw stars.
- I really see stars
- started to see stars
- hard enough to see stars
The blue goes away, and then you just see stars in broad daylight.
- The blue goes away, and then you just see stars in broad daylight.
- Because in your book, you talk about how you realize that inspiring if someone hit you pretty hard in the head, you'd end up seeing stars.
- A bull run over me and I could see stars inside of it, up through it.
Examples
-
He didn't breathe for a long moment, until he saw stars and spangles at the edges of his vision.
Fiction book (2002) -
Almost everyone has hit their head and seen stars.
Blog text (6) -
The pain was so intense, she saw stars.
Fiction book (1999) -
This time the cane fell on my head, and I saw stars.
Fiction book (2001) -
And the cook came up and he punched me on the side of my head... and my teeth clacked and I saw stars.
-
When he got hit during the game, he fell down and saw stars for a few seconds.
-
She felt faint and, in that moment, started to see stars before her eyes.
How Dizzy
188
3.7
38
2.7
- Informal
8
6.8
16
3.8
1
5.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
see + stars
The image 'see' + 'stars' directly evokes perceiving bright points and thus maps onto the sensation of flashes or spots in one’s vision after a blow or fainting, so the basic idea is readily inferable from the constituents. However, this is a conventionalized figurative use (common cross-linguistically) rather than a strictly compositional, literal meaning, so learners may infer the general sensation but not all causal or idiomatic nuances without prior exposure.
Etymology
See stars comes from the image of being hit or getting dizzy and actually see bright dots like stars in front of your eyes, and that's why it means 'to experience flashes of light or bright spots' after a blow or when you feel faint.