Where does “人目に余る” come from?

人目に余る (Japanese) comes from Japanese 人目, from Japanese 目, from Middle Chinese 目.

人目に余る (Japanese): to be too prominent, pretentious

Definitions

  1. to be too prominent, pretentious

Ancestry of “人目に余る”, step by step

人目に余る traces back through 3 separate lines of ancestry.

via Japanese 人目

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese人目an attention, observation, public notice
2Japanesean order in biology: smaller than a class, bigger...
3Middle Chinese

via Japanese

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japaneseparticle for indirect objects; to; particle for...
2Old Japanese

via Japanese 余る

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Japanese余るbe left over
Every word from Middle Chinese Every word from Japanese Every word from Japanese 人目