Word.ws English Dictionary

no cigar

no cigar phrase: used to indicate that one is not correct or has not succeeded.

Phrase

no cigar

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Used to indicate that one is not correct or has not succeeded.
    • Again - sure! A perfect excuse to hair the heroes of the current decade, and thus conform to everyone else and their current trends! How convenient. Well, no cigar. UK, 70s, was such a prolific and interesting time and place that I would argue, after having spent a good 6 years on studying...1996 June 30, Alexander Gitlin, “Your first Dp^([sic – meaning Deep Purple]) album & when”, in alt.music.deep-purple (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jul 2026
    • Those features ARE there, but the software that Microsoft offered (a very nice subset of MS Plus!) isn't! I looked, and looked, and looked, but no cigar. (typical!)1998 December 15, JD & The Bear, “How to stretch desktop wallpaper?”, in alt.windows95 (Usenet), archived from the original on 04 Jul 2026

Origin of no cigar

See close, but no cigar.

Questions about no cigar

What does no cigar mean?
No cigar means used to indicate that one is not correct or has not succeeded.
What part of speech is no cigar?
No cigar is a phrase.

Words near no cigar in the dictionary

  1. no cap
  2. no chance
  3. no changer
  4. no changers
  5. no chill
  6. no cigar
  7. no claims bonus
  8. no claims bonuses
  9. no clue
  10. no comment
  11. no comparison

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: no cigar (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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Cite this entry: “no cigar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/no_cigar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.