scratch the surface

scratch the surface 

1. Lit. to scratch something just on the surface, not extending the mark below the finish into the wood, stone, marble, below. There is no serious damage done to the bench. You only scratched the surface.

2. Fig. to just begin to find out about something; to examine only the superficial aspects of something. The investigation of the governor's staff revealed some suspicious dealing. It is thought that the investigators have just scratched the surface. We don't know how bad the problem is. We've only scratched the surface.

See also: scratch, surface

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scratch the surface

if you scratch the surface of a subject or a problem, you only discover or deal with a very small part of it (usually + of ) Up to now newspaper articles have only scratched the surface of this tremendously complex issue.

See also: scratch, surface

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scratch the surface

to deal with only a small part of a subject or a problem All the payments we've made so far have hardly scratched the surface of the total we borrowed.

See also: scratch, surface