beats me en · X
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Etymology
A shortening of it beats me
Meanings
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(as response or with indirect question, idiomatic) I don't know; I have no idea.
"Flowering shrubs don't thrive in the subterranean caverns from which geysers spring," suggested Bradley. Olson shook his head. "It beats me," he said.
1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:Do you have any idea what "tergiversate" means? Beats me!
Beats me how he finds out when we're goofing off.
Synonyms
Translations (4)
pt sei lá (I have no idea) · pl bo ja wiem (I have no idea) · sv vem vet (I have no idea) · sv säg det (I have no idea)