the emperor has no clothes

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a reference to Hans Christian Andersen's 1837 tale in which two swindlers convince an emperor and his court that they have made him a magnificent invisible garment visible only to the wise, when in fact there is no garment at all, and only a child is willing to say aloud what everyone can plainly see; the phrase is used to describe situations in which a widely held belief, claim, or pretension is obviously false or hollow, but social pressure, fear of appearing foolish, or deference to authority prevents people from stating the obvious truth; it is applied to financial bubbles, to the credibility of powerful institutions, to the quality of celebrated art or ideas, and to political leaders whose power rests on manufactured consent rather than genuine capacity, whenever someone finally speaks the plainly visible truth that others have been afraid to utter