be on about
UK informalDefinition
› If you ask someone what they are on about, you are asking them, often in a slightly annoyed way, what they mean: I dunno what you're on about.Meaning and significanceTypifying, illustrating and exemplifying
(Definition of be on about from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Meaning & significance, but you might be interested in these topics from the Communication topic area:
- Admitting & confessing
- Announcing, informing & stating
- Answering & responding
- Assertions & asserting
- Codes & decoding
- Communicating & keeping in touch
- Debate & discussion
- Defining & explaining
- Describing & telling stories
- Exaggerating & playing down
- Gestures & gesturing
- Giving advice
- Giving orders & commands
- Informal talking & conversation
- Insults & abuse
- Interrupting & preventing from speaking
- Inviting & summoning
- Lecturing & addressing
- Making & accepting apologies
- Making & breaking promises & commitments
- Making appeals & requests
- Meeting people
- Official meetings
- People who reveal secrets & tell tales
- Questioning people & asking questions in general
- Quoting & making references
- Remarks & remarking
- Revealing secrets & becoming known
- Saying & uttering
- Saying again
- Speakers & talkers
- Stressing & emphasizing
- Suggestions & proposals
- Suspecting & questioning
- Threats & warnings
- Topics & areas of interest
- Welcoming, greeting & greetings
- Written greetings
- Yes, no & not
Browse the Dictionary
-
be off your head idiom
-
be off your nut idiom
-
be on a collision course idiom
-
be on a hiding to nothing idiom
-
be on a roll idiom
- be on about idiom
-
be on an upward/downward trajectory idiom
-
be on another planet idiom
-
be on cloud nine idiom
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be on familiar terms idiom
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be on good, friendly, etc. terms (with sb) idiom
Browse the Thesaurus
SMART Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words:
- add up to sth phrasal verb (AMOUNT)
- be a badge of sth idiom
- drift noun (MEANING)
- drive at sth phrasal verb
- how adverb
- i.e.
- loaded adjective (NOT FAIR)
- mean verb (EXPRESS)
- mean verb (HAVE IMPORTANCE)
- mean verb (HAVE RESULT)
- meaning noun (OF WORD/WRITING/SIGN, ETC.)
- pregnant adjective (MEANING)
- purport noun
- put words in/into sb's mouth idiom
- significantly adverb (SPECIAL MEANING)
- signification noun
- signify verb (MEAN)
- speak to sb idiom
- subtext noun
- tenor noun (CHARACTER)
Topic:
Meaning & significance
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be under a cloud
to not be trusted or popular because people think you have done something bad
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