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

See Examples For:

can't make head or tail of

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

From Salon ● Dec. 2, 2016

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

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

“I can’t make head or tail of it.”

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

I can’t make head or tail of the matter.

From The Brute by Frederic Arnold Kummer

Of course everything clashes, and the poor old dear can't make head or tail of it!

From When Ghost Meets Ghost by William Frend De Morgan