Coming up blank

Grammar usage guide and real-world examples

I am trying to imagine a white president forced to show his papers at a national news conference, and coming up blank.

With all Google searches coming up blank, Corbyn moved on to what the government was proposing to do now the bedroom tax had been declared discriminatory.

Now the study the activists demanded is coming up blank on environmental causes and is simply reaffirming many of the established risk factors, such as a family history of breast cancer, having a first child at a late age, never giving birth or doing little or no breast-feeding.

Being asked what you need for the very first time by someone who really wants to know and then finding yourself coming up blank is, I think, a common experience for many men.

Even things like era-appropriate foods, lists of colors and clothing or armor types, and other ordinary things can add a lot of immersive things, and keep you from coming up blank or repeating yourself when inventing scenes or people on the fly.

Nate comes up blank.

I came up blank.

June came up blank once, twice.

He tried to read what was there but came up blank.

When we asked Bruce McCall for an idea for a golf cover, he came up blank.

"It's no use," the cabbie told me after the screen came up blank.