make head or tail of

• make heads or tails of (American)
• make head nor tail of (American)

make head or tail of (third-person singular simple present makes head or tail of, present participle making head or tail of, simple past and past participle made head or tail of)

1. (idiomatic) To understand even minimally.

   See if you can make head or tail of the last section in this chapter. I'm baffled.

   He was unable to make head or tail of some of the pattern-solving puzzles in the IQ test.

2. To determine to be good or bad.

In sense 1, usually with a construction expressing inability, as in "I can't make head or tail of it".

• coin toss
• heads or tails