刮目相看

Pronunciation: guā mù xiāng kàn Literal meaning: Scrape eyes look anew

Origin & Usage

Lü Meng was a Wu general dismissed as unlettered muscle until his sovereign told him to read. When Lu Su next passed through and talked strategy with him, he was astonished, and Lü Meng answered with the line that became the idiom: 士别三日，即更刮目相待 — when a man has been apart three days, you must scrape (刮) your eyes (目) and look (看) at him afresh. Pei Songzhi's commentary to the Records of the Three Kingdoms preserves it, quoting the Jiangbiao Zhuan. What it asks for is the effort of dropping an assessment that has gone stale, and it is used of people who have been underestimated.

Examples

English: "After her breakthrough performance, critics had to reassess her artistic abilities"

Chinese: 在她的突破性表演之后，评论家们不得不重新评估她的艺术才能