unable
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Related to unable: not able
be unable to hear (oneself) think
To be unable to concentrate on anything due to overwhelming noise. Can you turn down that blaring music? I'm unable hear myself think! There's so much construction going on during the day that you're unable to hear yourself think over the chorus of jackhammers.
unable to go on
Not able to proceed or persist. After I twisted my ankle, I was unable to go on—that's why I didn't finish the race. Our company will be unable to go on for much longer if our sales don't improve.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
be unable to hear yourself think
be unable to think clearly as a result of an excessive amount of noise. informalFarlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
make head or tail of something, to be unable to
To fail to understand something. This term was already used to denote total confusion by Cicero (Nec caput nec pedes, meaning “neither head nor feet”). Whether it refers to beginning or end, or top or bottom, or, as someone suggests, the two sides of a coin, is not known, but to make neither head nor tail of something has been so used ever since, in English from the seventeenth century to the present.
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer