not know beans (about something)
(redirected from I don't know beans about)not know beans (about something)
To know nothing or next to nothing (about something). Don't ask me! I don't know beans about car engines. I'm fairly handy when it comes to fixing cars, but put me in front of a computer and I won't know beans.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
not know beans (about someone or something)
Inf. to know nothing about someone or something. Bill doesn't know beans about flying an airplane. When it comes to flying, I don't know beans.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
not know beans
Also, not know the first thing; not know from nothing. Be ignorant about something, as in a poem published in the Yale Literary Magazine in 1855: "When our recent Tutor is heard to speak, This truth one certainly gleans, Whatever he knows of Euclid and Greek, In Latin he don't know beans." The beans in this colloquial phrase, dating from the early 1800s, signify something small and worthless; not knowing the first thing about something clearly shows one doesn't know anything about it at all; and the third slangy phrase, with its double negative, implies stupidity as well as ignorance, as in Poor girl, just starting out and she doesn't know from nothing.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
not know beans about
know nothing about. North American informal 2001 Hudson Review One tires of reading collections of prose by poets who may know their craft from holes in the ground but don't appear to know beans about anything else.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
not know ˈbeans about something
(American English, informal) know nothing about a subject: I really don’t know beans about economics.Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
not know beans
verbnot know beans (about something)
tv. to know nothing about something. Don’t pay any attention to her. She doesn’t know beans.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
not know beans
Be quite ignorant about something. This colloquialism dates from the early nineteenth century, when beans denoted something small or worthless. However, from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s the converse, to know beans, meant to be quite knowledgeable. The latter has not survived, but we still hear, for example, “Don’t ask Harry’s advice; he doesn’t know beans about cars.” A more specific and much ruder variant is not know one’s ass from one’s elbow, which dates from about 1900 and denotes general stupidity. Other versions replace “elbow” with “hole in the ground,” but “elbow” is heard more often and has become a cliché. A 1963 citation has it, “These medics don’t know their asses from their elbows.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer