Word.ws English Dictionary

how long is a piece of string

how long is a piece of string phrase: used as a response to a question such as "How long will it take?" or "How big is it?" when the length or size is unknown, infinite, variable, or relative.

Phrase

how long is a piece of string?

  1. (colloquial, humorous, often, rhetoric) Used as a response to a question such as "How long will it take?" or "How big is it?" when the length or size is unknown, infinite, variable, or relative.

Questions about how long is a piece of string

What does how long is a piece of string mean?
How long is a piece of string means used as a response to a question such as "How long will it take?" or "How big is it?" when the length or size is unknown, infinite, variable, or relative.
What part of speech is how long is a piece of string?
How long is a piece of string is a phrase.

Words near how long is a piece of string in the dictionary

  1. how goes it
  2. how goes the battle
  3. how goes the enemy
  4. how goes the war
  5. how long
  6. how long is a piece of string
  7. how many
  8. how many fingers am I holding up
  9. how many languages do you speak
  10. how many siblings do you have
  11. how many stops until

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: how long is a piece of string (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-how long is a piece of string.ogg.

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