draw a blank

1. 1.

   be unable to remember

   “I'm drawing a blank”

   “You are blocking the name of your first wife!”

   Synonymsforgetblockblank out

   Narrowerslip

Questions about draw a blank

What does draw a blank mean?

draw a blank means "be unable to remember".

What is another word for draw a blank?

Close synonyms include forget, block, blank out. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is draw a blank a common word?

draw a blank is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.