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can't seem to



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Idioms and Phrases

Be apparently unable to, as in No matter how hard I try, I can't seem to concentrate on this book . This phrase gives added emphasis to a negative statement, as in the example. [Late 1800s]
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Quite inconsistent and that makes it very hard to understand what you need from the car when for whatever reason we can't seem to make the tyres work.

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As Rickey, a flighty self-starter who just can’t seem to get started, Angarano is wildly funny and also painfully familiar.

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But despite that, Wall Street can’t seem to quit him.

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Something that is so funny is how people can’t seem to remember the names of these women.

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Never mind the parking tickets I get each month, or the speeding tickets I can’t seem to escape as a driver raised on Houston’s infamous Interstate 45, or the fact that walks and subway rides leave me feeling far more connected to humanity than a trip in my cramped metal box.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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can't see beyond the end of one's nose.can't see the forest for the trees