eye-opener

eye opener

1. An utterly shocking or startling thing, situation, or revelation. Sometimes hyphenated. The former champion's crushing defeat in the first round of the tournament was an eye opener to everyone who had expected her to make it to the finals without resistance. Learning about John's opium addiction was a real eye-opener for me.
2. A strong alcoholic beverage consumed early in the morning or first thing upon waking. Sometimes hyphenated. Primarily heard in US, Canada, South Africa. After going on quite a bender over the weekend, an eye opener was the only thing that could get me moving on Monday morning.
See also: eye, opener
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

eye-opener

1. n. a real surprise. This day has been an eye-opener for me.
2. n. a wake-up drink of liquor; a strong drink any time. He knocked back a quick eye-opener and finished dressing.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • eye opener
  • eye opener, an
  • in demand
  • bleeding edge
  • hit and miss
  • hit or miss
  • hit-and-miss
  • flat chat
  • flat strap
  • once in a lifetime
References in periodicals archive
Tonight has been a great eye-opener for everybody to see what needs to be done.
Certainly, it is my hope that the Hyde Interview will prove to be an eye-opener, when DU's 2008 class is complete, we'll have some sense of that.
The free, fiveday session was a real eye-opener. "When you re young, you're more concerned with buying clothes," says Aubree, who owns stock in Nike, McDonald's, and WorldCom, and recently opened a mutual fund account.
"Meat makes sense around here," according to Jamie, "This landscape is well-suited to raising animals." A trip to the farm is an eye-opener. No confined animals here.
His first ballet, Somnambulism, was an eye-opener; with one leap he had almost put himself in contention with his friend and near contemporary, the already established John Cranko.
"It was an eye-opener," said Leknes, "the Canadians really know their stuff when it comes to deploying ...
"It's been an eye-opener. The program itself is really comprehensive and excellent." Megan Smith, an ecology centre science and technology intern, says the industry is starting to experience a critical shortage of skilled forestry professionals.
It has been a real eye-opener. Practising traditional Catholic teachers are frequently stymied.
"Doing research for the Biennial and going to places like Houston and Miami was a real eye-opener. The challenge will be carving out the time to do that and that's just something that I'm going to have to do and Max will have to support me on.
How nouns, proper and common, can reverberate in the tales is etymologically documented: friar Rinaldo of VII,3 has a "relative" in Reynard the Fox; Natan of X,3 means "dans vel dantis," and his "fama" comes from the Latin "fari," literally "that which is spoken of," while Mitridanes gets "an eye-opener" for "invidia." Mazzotta's impeccable medievalism, however, is marred by an inconsistent style.
It is scholarly, readable, and most importantly, an eye-opener to the untrained reader concernin the relationship between language, the world it seeks to describe, and those seeking to use words to describe their world.
Summary: The Editorial, No child should suffer due to negligence (KT, June 17) was an eye-opener. However, I would like to point out some more issues...
Bulalacao said the incident should serve as an eye-opener to all other potential victims.
As his year-ender post, Crawford wrote that 2017 has been an 'eye-opener' for him, adding that there were lessons and situations he learned from, aside from planning his 'road to forever' with Garcia.
WARRINGTON TOWN manager Lee Smith admits life in the Evo-Stik League Northern Premier Division has been something of an "eye-opener" for his team, but he is backing them to make an impact after two wins from their last three games.