to know beans about
1
9.7
- idiom
- Informal
:
no saber nada de
- "He's no clang effigy, and I don't know beans about a statement," Harmon said.
Examples
-
Doesn't know beans about the game of baseball.
-
Everyone realizes that I don't know beans about electronics, and neither does Joanna.
Fiction book (1996) -
Doesn't know beans about the game of baseball.
-
As he showed in the debates, he doesn't know beans about the substance of any of his programs.
Blog text (9) -
"Twenty-somethings may be whizzes at social media, but they typically don't know beans about brand management."
Blog text (4) -
They don't know beans about that, Sugar—they never have and they never will.
Fiction book (1997) -
It's plain they don't know beans about birds.
-
Buying food in bulk may seem intimidating if you don't know beans about it.
Synonyms
279
3.6
To have no idea about something
80
6.4
To not know anything about a subject or situation
To not understand anything about a subject
Antonyms
How Knowledgeable
∞
1.5
- Informal
1
9.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun 'beans' is used idiomatically/slangily here to signal 'anything' or 'very little', so the overall meaning 'to have very little or no knowledge' is not transparently built from the literal senses of 'know' + 'beans' + 'about'. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would be unlikely to infer this slang usage without prior exposure, making the expression unpredictable and language-specific.
Etymology
Know beans about may come from the idea that beans are small, cheap things, so to say someone 'knows beans' meant they know almost nothing about a subject. That's why the phrase means 'to have very little or no knowledge'.