on the tip of one's tongue

Definition

Known but not quite able to be recalled.

Example Sentences

• "Her name is on the tip of my tongue: it's Kathy, or Karen, or something."
• "The feeling that a blocked word or name is on the tip of the tongue appears to be a near-universal experience. The cognitive psychologist Bennett Schwarz surveyed speakers of fifty-one different languages and found that forty-five of them contain expressions using "the tongue" to describe situations […]"