draw a blank
draw a blank verb: to be unable to recall a required piece of information.
Verb
draw a blank (third-person singular simple present draws a blank, present participle drawing a blank, simple past drew a blank, past participle drawn a blank)
- To be unable to recall a required piece of information.
- I should know that person's name, but I'm drawing a blank.
- To fail; not to find anything; to produce no successful response.
- "Oh," she replied, "when I came to think of it, I saw, that you were right. I thought, 'twas quite likely it [the lottery ticket] would draw a blank.[…]"1856, Lucius Manlius Sargent, Dealings with the Dead, volume 2, page 472
- When she brainstormed about what else she would do, where else she would go, her mind drew a blank.2022, Ling Ma, “Office Hours”, in Bliss Montage, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN
Forms of draw a blank
| third-person singular present | draws a blank |
|---|---|
| present participle | drawing a blank |
| past | drew a blank |
| past participle | drawn a blank |
Origin of draw a blank
Probably from the idea of drawing of a blank (losing) ticket in an old-fashioned lottery.
Questions about draw a blank
- What does draw a blank mean?
- Draw a blank means to be unable to recall a required piece of information.
- What part of speech is draw a blank?
- Draw a blank is a verb.
- What is the past tense of draw a blank?
- The past tense of draw a blank is drew a blank.
Words near draw a blank in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: draw a blank (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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