"scratch one's head" meaning in All languages combined

See scratch one's head on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: En-au-scratch one's head.ogg [Australia] Forms: scratches one's head [present, singular, third-person], scratching one's head [participle, present], scratched one's head [participle, past], scratched one's head [past]
Etymology: scratch + one's + head Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} scratch one's head (third-person singular simple present scratches one's head, present participle scratching one's head, simple past and past participle scratched one's head)
  1. (idiomatic) To puzzle, ponder, or wonder about something. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: head-scratcher, head scratcher, head-scratching, head scratching, SMH (english: scratching my head), smh
    Sense id: en-scratch_one's_head-en-verb-eTBqrvHq Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for scratch one's head meaning in All languages combined (2.1kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "scratch + one's + head",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "scratches one's head",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "scratching one's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "scratched one's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "scratched one's head",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "scratch one's head (third-person singular simple present scratches one's head, present participle scratching one's head, simple past and past participle scratched one's head)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Faced with a box full of hundreds of small parts and forty pages worth of assembly instructions, he could do little more than stand there and scratch his head."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 December 28, Owen Phillips, “Sunderland 0 - 2 Blackpool”, in BBC",
          "text": "But Sunderland will be left scratching their heads at the result after creating enough chances to have won two games in a refreshingly open and frantic first period.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To puzzle, ponder, or wonder about something."
      ],
      "id": "en-scratch_one's_head-en-verb-eTBqrvHq",
      "links": [
        [
          "puzzle",
          "puzzle"
        ],
        [
          "ponder",
          "ponder"
        ],
        [
          "wonder",
          "wonder"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To puzzle, ponder, or wonder about something."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "head-scratcher"
        },
        {
          "word": "head scratcher"
        },
        {
          "word": "head-scratching"
        },
        {
          "word": "head scratching"
        },
        {
          "english": "scratching my head",
          "word": "SMH"
        },
        {
          "word": "smh"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-scratch one's head.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5c/En-au-scratch_one%27s_head.ogg/En-au-scratch_one%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/En-au-scratch_one%27s_head.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "scratch one's head"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "scratch + one's + head",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "scratches one's head",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "scratching one's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "scratched one's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "scratched one's head",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "scratch one's head (third-person singular simple present scratches one's head, present participle scratching one's head, simple past and past participle scratched one's head)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "head-scratcher"
    },
    {
      "word": "head scratcher"
    },
    {
      "word": "head-scratching"
    },
    {
      "word": "head scratching"
    },
    {
      "english": "scratching my head",
      "word": "SMH"
    },
    {
      "word": "smh"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Faced with a box full of hundreds of small parts and forty pages worth of assembly instructions, he could do little more than stand there and scratch his head."
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 December 28, Owen Phillips, “Sunderland 0 - 2 Blackpool”, in BBC",
          "text": "But Sunderland will be left scratching their heads at the result after creating enough chances to have won two games in a refreshingly open and frantic first period.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To puzzle, ponder, or wonder about something."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "puzzle",
          "puzzle"
        ],
        [
          "ponder",
          "ponder"
        ],
        [
          "wonder",
          "wonder"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To puzzle, ponder, or wonder about something."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-scratch one's head.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/5/5c/En-au-scratch_one%27s_head.ogg/En-au-scratch_one%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/En-au-scratch_one%27s_head.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "scratch one's head"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.