目不转睛
- Literal
- the eyes do not turn their pupils
- Figurative
- To keep your eyes glued to something, without looking away for a second: it describes the gaze itself, not how much of it you are actually taking in.
Where does 目不转睛 come from?
It comes from no anecdote: the four characters are a physical description —目 (eye), 不 (not), 转 (to turn) and 睛 (pupil)— that together say "to look without the eyes shifting in the slightest." The earliest quotation dictionaries give for it sits in Yang Quan's 《物理论》, from the third century, where a man sits up straight through a whole night beside a lit candle and never once looks away. It is not a story but a brushstroke: the force lies in the image of someone caught up in what he sees. It usually works as an adverb, with 地 before a verb of looking.
Source (出处): 杨泉《物理论》
How is 目不转睛 used? Two examples
- 孩子们目不转睛地盯着屏幕，连饭都忘了吃。
The kids stared at the screen without taking their eyes off it and even forgot to eat.
- 主持人一开口，全场都目不转睛地看着他。
The moment the host started speaking, the whole room watched him without taking their eyes off him.
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