A shortening of it beats me
beats me
- (idiomatic, as response or with indirect question) I don't know; I have no idea.
- Do you have any idea what "tergiversate" means? Beats me!
- Beats me how he finds out when we're goofing off.
1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter IV, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:"Flowering shrubs don't thrive in the subterranean caverns from which geysers spring," suggested Bradley. Olson shook his head. "It beats me," he said.
- This expression is nearly always used in the present tense, first person singular, as given above.
