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there's no telling
Idioms and Phrases
It's impossible to determine, as in There's no telling how many children will come down with measles , or There's no telling what will happen in the next episode of that soap opera . This idiom uses telling in the sense of āreckoning,ā a usage dating from the late 1300s.Example Sentences
It certainly doesnāt imply any endorsement of Navarroās disastrous trade-war policies, although thereās no telling how far his ideas got hijacked or mistranslated on their way through Donald Trumpās brain.
BeyoncĆ© being BeyoncĆ©, thereās no telling what kind of musical and visual spectacular sheās got in store ā though she may have provided a hint in December with the characteristically intricate halftime show she performed during a Christmas Day NFL game.
āThereās no telling how many lives would be tragically cut short and how many communities would have been devastated had these drugs been distributed,ā Bonta said.
āThat prayer was for me. My son had already passed, but I had to be built up before the doctor told me what happened. If I hadnāt done that first, thereās no telling how it wouldāve gone.ā
All of this might well be illegal, and a military devoted to the rule of law would refuse to carry out such orders, but without independent safeguards, thereās no telling what orders senior military leaders might accept, until itās too late.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Ā© Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American HeritageĀ® Idioms Dictionary copyright Ā© 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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