blind alley
4
6.2
- noun
- /blaɪnd ˈæli/
- Informal
:
callejón sin salida
- In other words, all his ponderings and reflections had led him into a blind alley.
- leads into a blind alley
And, and it's either, in other words, you've got, we've got to be willing to explore blind alleys.
- And, and it's either, in other words, you've got, we've got to be willing to explore blind alleys.
- Let other people be The Pioneers and you know, and go down the blind alleys that there's many things that that a new inventive company tries won't work.
Examples
-
He was in a blind alley, and Maria Spina's shadowy graces seemed powerless to lead him out.
Fiction book (1998) -
By making clear that the nationalist agenda has been leading the country down a blind alley, Serbia's loss of sovereignty over Kosovo could well result in the strengthening of Serbian centrists.
Academic text (2005) -
It might turn out to be a blind alley.
Academic text (2011) -
We even love to go down avenues that turn out to be blind alleys," said Bezos.
Blog text (30) -
This conviction would lead him into blind alleys, but it also led to astonishing successes, planned and unplanned.
-
Many of the proposed solutions turned out to be a blind alley that wasted our time.
-
After exploring so many options, we realized that negotiating with them was a blind alley.
-
The team's insistence on that strategy proved to be a blind alley with no positive outcomes.
Synonyms
39
4.9
Something that has no chance of success
28
2.7
A street or road that ends and does not go through
22
6.6
A hopeless search for something that does not exist
12
7.2
A task that has no chance of success
1
8.1
Doing something that leads nowhere useful
Antonyms
How Promising
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal reading 'an alley that is 'blind' (i.e. has no way through)' is reasonably inferable from 'blind' + 'alley', so learners who know the constituents can often guess the concrete dead-end sense. However, the extension to a figurative 'course of action that leads nowhere' is a metaphorical shift and not fully predictable for a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Blind alley is also used for plans or paths that do not lead anywhere. The picture of a real alley with no exit helps explain why the phrase means a problem or idea that 'leads nowhere'.