can't make head or tail of

Idioms  

1. 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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Example Sentences

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

From Salon • Dec. 2, 2016

“I can’t make head or tail of it.”

From "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad" by Ann Petry

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

From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

Not that I've had time to hear everything yet, but I own I can't make head or tail of what I have heard.

From The Camera Fiend by Hornung, E. W. (Ernest William)

Why, I've got to write out the translation of some of this Caesar for old Thorpe, and I can't make head or tail of the blessed stuff.

From Soldiers of the Queen by Avery, Harold