Word.ws English Dictionary

like a hole in one's head

like a hole in one's head prepositional phrase: absolutely not; used to describe how little one needs an undesirable thing or situation.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (emphatic, informal, postpositional) Absolutely not; used to describe how little one needs an undesirable thing or situation.
    • Ford looked at him for a moment. “Fort Apache?” he asked. “Yes, Fort Apache,” said Clothier.
      “I need that goddamn sequence like I need a hole in my head,” grumbled Ford. “We'll shoot that whole goddamn thing over right here on the stage.”2012, Scott Eyman, Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford, page 470

Forms of like a hole in one's head

alternative formlike a hole in the head

Origin of like a hole in one's head

Calque of Yiddish װי אַ לאָך אין קאָפּ (vi a lokh in kop).

Questions about like a hole in one's head

What does like a hole in one's head mean?
Like a hole in one's head means absolutely not; used to describe how little one needs an undesirable thing or situation.
What part of speech is like a hole in one's head?
Like a hole in one's head is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like a hole in one's head in the dictionary

  1. like a fart in church
  2. like a hawk
  3. like a headless chicken
  4. like a headless chook
  5. like a hen on a hot griddle
  6. like a hole in one's head
  7. like a hole in the head
  8. like a hot knife through butter
  9. like a house afire
  10. like a kid at Christmas
  11. like a kid in a candy store

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a hole in one's head (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “like a hole in one's head.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/like_a_hole_in_one%27s_head. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.