beat one's head against the wall

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Also, bang or run one's head against or into a brick wall. Waste one's time in a hopeless enterprise, as in I have tried many times to convince him to stop smoking, but I'm beating my head against a brick wall. The metaphoric phrase alludes to a physical expression of frustration. [Late 1500s] Also see beat the air.

QUIZ

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If autumn is your ideal season, spice up your repertoire of "fall" vocabulary with this quiz on some warm and vivid descriptive words for the season.

Question 1 of 10

Which of the following words means “to make a crackling sound; crackle”?

crisp

crepitate

fuscous

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Words nearby beat one's head against the wall

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How to use beat one's head against the wall in a sentence

Added to drinking water at concentrations of around one part per million, fluoride ions stick to dental plaque.
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In his view, a writer has only one duty: to be present in his books.
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Yet this, in the end, is a book from which one emerges sad, gloomy, disenchanted, at least if we agree to take it seriously.
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France 24 is providing live, round-the-clock coverage of both scenes as they progress.
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The fear of violence should not determine what one does or does not say.
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Practise gliding in the form of inflection, or slide, from one extreme of pitch to another.
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He alludes to it as one of their evil customs and used by them to produce insensibility.
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Madame Ratignolle, more careful of her complexion, had twined a gauze veil about her head.
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There was a rumor that Alessandro and his father had both died; but no one knew anything certainly.
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Truth is a torch, but one of enormous size; so that we slink past it in rather a blinking fashion for fear it should burn us.
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