"talk over someone's head" meaning in English

See talk over someone's head in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-talk over someone's head.ogg Forms: talks over someone's head [present, singular, third-person], talking over someone's head [participle, present], talked over someone's head [participle, past], talked over someone's head [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} talk over someone's head (third-person singular simple present talks over someone's head, present participle talking over someone's head, simple past and past participle talked over someone's head)
  1. (idiomatic) To communicate something beyond the level of comprehension of the target. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-talk_over_someone's_head-en-verb-f7Ks~EPo Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "talks over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talking over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "talk over someone's head (third-person singular simple present talks over someone's head, present participle talking over someone's head, simple past and past participle talked over someone'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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001, Dan Brown, Deception Point, Pocket Books, →ISBN:",
          "text": "NASA was often accused of talking over the public's head.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To communicate something beyond the level of comprehension of the target."
      ],
      "id": "en-talk_over_someone's_head-en-verb-f7Ks~EPo",
      "links": [
        [
          "communicate",
          "communicate"
        ],
        [
          "level",
          "level"
        ],
        [
          "comprehension",
          "comprehension"
        ],
        [
          "target",
          "target"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To communicate something beyond the level of comprehension of the target."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-talk over someone's head.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/En-au-talk_over_someone%27s_head.ogg/En-au-talk_over_someone%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/En-au-talk_over_someone%27s_head.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "talk over someone's head"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "talks over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talking over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "talked over someone's head",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "talk over someone's head (third-person singular simple present talks over someone's head, present participle talking over someone's head, simple past and past participle talked over someone's head)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2001, Dan Brown, Deception Point, Pocket Books, →ISBN:",
          "text": "NASA was often accused of talking over the public's head.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To communicate something beyond the level of comprehension of the target."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "communicate",
          "communicate"
        ],
        [
          "level",
          "level"
        ],
        [
          "comprehension",
          "comprehension"
        ],
        [
          "target",
          "target"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To communicate something beyond the level of comprehension of the target."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-talk over someone's head.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/41/En-au-talk_over_someone%27s_head.ogg/En-au-talk_over_someone%27s_head.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/En-au-talk_over_someone%27s_head.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "talk over someone's head"
}

Download raw JSONL data for talk over someone's head meaning in English (1.7kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-20 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (ee63ee9 and 4230888). 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.