Word.ws English Dictionary

raising eyebrows

raising eyebrows is the present participle and gerund of raise eyebrows.

Meaning of raise eyebrows

Verb

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.
    • 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.1995 May 21, Steven Levy, “The Unabomber and David Gelernter”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  2. (idiomatic) To cause mild disapproval.
    • The fact that a Chinese state-owned company was awarded the contract to build the structure also raised eyebrows.2022 July 27, Tamara Hardingham-Gill, “New Croatia bridge redraws map of Adriatic coast”, in CNN
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see raise, eyebrows.

Questions about raising eyebrows

What is raising eyebrows the present participle and gerund of?
Raising eyebrows is the present participle and gerund of raise eyebrows.

Words near raising eyebrows in the dictionary

  1. raising an eyebrow
  2. raising board
  3. raising boards
  4. raising Cain
  5. raising cane
  6. raising eyebrows
  7. raising flags
  8. raising from the dead
  9. raising gig
  10. raising gigs
  11. raising hell

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raising eyebrows (page history and authors); raise eyebrows (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.

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Cite this entry: “raising eyebrows.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/raising_eyebrows. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.