Word.ws English Dictionary

nothing to see here

nothing to see here phrase: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nothing, to, see, here.

Phrase

nothing to see here

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nothing, to, see, here.
    • This town is very unattractive to tourists, since there's nothing to see here.
    Synonyms:
    move along, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, elephant in the room
  2. The event or situation is unremarkable or unimportant, and people should not pay undue attention to it.
    • After the press conference about the financial scandal, the spokesperson reassured the public that there was nothing to see here.
  3. (figuratively, ironic, often, sarcastic) A phrase used to dismiss or downplay an event, frequently implying that there is, in fact, something significant being hidden or covered up.
    • The politician's vague response to corruption allegations was essentially a nothing-to-see-here moment.
    • A factory discharged waste into the river, but officials insisted it posed no danger. There was a sentiment of "nothing to see here".

Synonyms of nothing to see here

Origin of nothing to see here

Derived from the police directive "Nothing to see here, move along," historically used to clear bystanders from crime or accident scenes. The phrase gained widespread recognition after its comedic use in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988), where Frank Drebin (played by Leslie Nielsen) tries to defuse a chaotic scene by stating, "Move along! Nothing to see here!"

Questions about nothing to see here

What does nothing to see here mean?
Nothing to see here means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see nothing, to, see, here.
What part of speech is nothing to see here?
Nothing to see here is a phrase.

Words near nothing to see here in the dictionary

  1. nothing special
  2. nothing succeeds like success
  3. nothing to choose between
  4. nothing to it
  5. nothing to see
  6. nothing to see here
  7. nothing to sneeze at
  8. nothing to sniff at
  9. nothing to write home about
  10. nothing ventured, nothing gained
  11. nothing-burger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nothing to see here (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-nothing to see here.wav.

Cite this entry: “nothing to see here.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nothing_to_see_here. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.