raise eyebrows

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raise eyebrows (third-person singular simple present raises eyebrows, present participle raising eyebrows, simple past and past participle raised eyebrows)

1. (idiomatic) To cause surprise.
   • 1995 May 21, Steven Levy, “The Unabomber and David Gelernter”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     How did we lose the future? Gelernter's answer may raise some eyebrows. He believes that the United States realized the fair's predictions of a technological and economic utopia—and the country subsequently imploded with its own success.

   • 2021 June 29, Phil McNulty, “England 2-0 Germany”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Southgate's team selection raised eyebrows when he decided to leave the creative talents of Grealish and Phil Foden on the bench and showed huge faith in Arsenal teenager Bukayo Saka by starting him after his fine performance against the Czechs.

   • 2023 June 6, Ian Bogost, “The Age of Goggles Has Arrived”, in The Atlantic‎:

     Microsoft, the software, gaming, and cloud-computing giant, secured a contract to sell “mixed reality” goggles to the U.S. Army that could be worth nearly $22 billion over a decade. All of this raised eyebrows at the time. But then computers started generating eyebrows that raised themselves.

2. (idiomatic) To cause mild disapproval.
   • 2022 July 27, Tamara Hardingham-Gill, “New Croatia bridge redraws map of Adriatic coast”, in CNN‎:

     The fact that a Chinese state-owned company was awarded the contract to build the structure also raised eyebrows.

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see raise,‎ eyebrows.

• eyebrow-raising
• raise one's eyebrows