Word.ws English Dictionary

struck a false note

struck a false note is the simple past and past participle of strike a false note.

Meaning of strike a false note

Verb

strike a false note (third-person singular simple present strikes a false note, present participle striking a false note, simple past and past participle struck a false note)

  1. (idiomatic) To give the impression of being insincere, incongruous or inappropriate.
    • But she crossed out “I do understand”; it struck a false note. Henry could not bear to be understood.1910, E. M. Forster, chapter 28, in Howards End, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 293

Questions about struck a false note

What is struck a false note the simple past and past participle of?
Struck a false note is the simple past and past participle of strike a false note.

Words near struck a false note in the dictionary

  1. struck
  2. struck a balance
  3. struck a bargain
  4. struck a blow
  5. struck a chord
  6. struck a false note
  7. struck a light
  8. struck a medium
  9. struck a nerve
  10. struck a stroke
  11. struck at the heart of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: struck a false note (page history and authors); strike a false note (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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