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.

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Words nearby beat one's head against the wall

beatnik, beatniks, beat off, Beaton, beat one's brains out, beat one's head against the wall, beat out, beat poets, Beatrice, Beatrix, beats me

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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