| idiom. |
if you say that someone is pulling the wool over your eyes, you mean that they are trying to deceive you, in order to have an advantage over you (Stop trying to pull the wool over my eyes! What were you two fighting about just now?  collinsdictionary.com); to deceive someone (He doesn't have any special powers – he's just trying to pull the wool over your eyes. cambridge.org); to try to trick or cheat someone by giving them wrong information (You’re not pulling the wool over my eyes – I know what you’re trying to do. macmillandictionary.com); to deceive someone by not telling the truth (Don't try and pull the wool over my eyes – I can tell you've been smoking.
• He found out we had been pulling the wool over his eyes for quite some time.
• There are people who can pull the wool over peoples' eyes.
• You can not pull the wool over Hooper's eyes.
• You can't pull the wool over my eyes like that.
• But it's not easy to pull the wool over our eyes.
• The only conclusion a consumer can reach is that Microsoft managed to pull the wool over the eyes of millions of users.
• The politicians are just trying to pull the wool over voters' eyes again. ldoceonline.com); to deceive, fool, or misdirect one, especially to gain an advantage (Likely an allusion to the once-common practice of men wearing large powdered wigs that resembled lambs' wool: Be prepared for your kids to try to pull the wool over your eyes when they're teenagers.
• He tried pulling the wool over our eyes by hiding the profits in separate accounts, but we were quick to catch onto his scheme. thefreedictionary.com); to hoodwink or deceive someone (This term comes from—and long survives—the custom of wearing a wig (except in the British legal system, where judges and barristers still do so). One writer suggests that it alludes to the slippage of the wig of a judge, who is temporarily blinded by a clever lawyer. In any event, it was used figuratively in a quite general way from the early nineteenth century on, on both sides of the Atlantic. "He ain't so big a fool as to have the wool drawn over his eyes in that way," wrote Frances M. Whitcher (The Widow Bedott Papers, 1856).: Be prepared for your kids to try to pull the wool over your eyes when they're teenagers.
thefreedictionary.com); to trick or deceive someone : to hide the truth from someone (He was too clever to let them pull the wool over his eyes. merriam-webster.com) |
