CAN'T MAKE HEAD OR TAIL OF Definition & Meaning

can't make head or tail of

Also can't make heads or tails of. Fail to understand, be quite confused about, as in I can't make head or tail of these directions. A version of this term dates back to Roman times, when Cicero wrote Ne caput nec pedes (“neither head nor feet”) to describe confusion. In the current idiom the precise allusion is unclear: head and tail may mean top and bottom, beginning and end, or the two sides of a coin. [Second half of 1600s]

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If you can’t make head or tail of what’s going on with Brexit at this moment, what with all the stalled votes and extended deadlines and general turmoil, I promise you’re not alone in your befuddlement.

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I still can’t make head or tail of Peter.

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As upsetting as this is, I really can’t make head or tail of it.

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“I can’t make head or tail of it.”

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I can’t make head or tail of it,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

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can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear canto

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can't make head or tail of

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