cannot make head or tail of something

can't make heads or tails (out) of (someone or something)

Cannot understand someone or something at all; cannot make any sense of someone or something. I've been working with the new software for hours, but I still can't make heads or tails out of it. I can't make heads or tails of that new guy in accounting. Sometimes, he's really friendly, and then other times he acts like he's never met me before. We tried identifying the hieroglyphs on the ancient tablet, but they were so archaic that we couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

See also: head, make, of, tail

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

cannot make head or tail of something

or

cannot make head nor tail of something

mainly BRITISH

If you cannot make head or tail of something or cannot make head nor tail of it, you cannot understand it at all. I couldn't make head or tail of the instructions. They couldn't make head nor tail of the new computer system.

See also: cannot, head, make, of, something, tail

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012