put two and two together

Idioms  

1. Draw the proper inference from existing evidence, as in Putting two and two together, it's not hard to guess who will be chosen for the lead role in the play. [Mid-1800s]

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Example Sentences

Penelope had already done quite a bit of math that day, between teaching the children how to figure the area of a triangle and performing a thorough review of the multiplication tables, but at the moment she only longed to “put two and two together,” as the saying goes, and come up with some sort of answer that made sense.

From Literature

Park put two and two together and guessed that the nature of these piles of consumer loans insured by AIG FP was changing, that they contained a lot more subprime mortgages than anyone knew, and that if U.S. homeowners began to default in sharply greater numbers, AIG didn’t have anywhere near the capital required to cover the losses.

From Literature

Surely, the viewer can put two and two together on their own to decipher a deeper meaning within the text without the message being spoon-fed to them.

From Salon

However Stokes chose to spin it, his "put two and two together" comments were ambiguous at best and clumsy at worst.

From BBC

On Wednesday, the eve of the one-off Test against Zimbabwe, Stokes appeared to hint Bethell would come back for the series against India later in the summer by saying: "You put two and two together, you probably know what's going to happen."

From BBC

Related Words

• clarify
• clear up
• decide
• determine
• do
• explain
• figure out
• fix
• have
• iron out
• settle
• work out