nail Jell-O to a wall

A form of nail Jell-O to a tree — To do something that is impossible or very difficult, with connotations of pointlessness.

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Meanings

verbnail Jell-O to a wall (third-person singular simple present nails Jell-O to a wall, present participle nailing Jell-O to a wall, simple past and past participle nailed Jell-O to a wall)

present singular third person nails Jell-O to a wall · participle present nailing Jell-O to a wall · participle past nailed Jell-O to a wall · past nailed Jell-O to a wall

  1. alternativeAlternative form of nail Jell-O to a tree.

    Writing objective history or raising a teenager may be like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall, as those and other challenging tasks have been popularly analogized.

    2016, Robert Kerr, How Postmodernism Explains Football and Football Explains Postmodernism
    1 more example

    We know how much the Internet has changed America. And we are already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China. Now, there is no question – China has been trying to crack down on the Internet. Good luck. That's sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.

    2000 March 8, 32:26 from the start, in Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, spoken by Bill Clinton, via C-SPAN, retrieved 17 Jun 2025
Cite this entry
APA

nail Jell-O to a wall. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nail%20Jell-O%20to%20a%20wall

MLA

“nail Jell-O to a wall.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nail%20Jell-O%20to%20a%20wall. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “nail Jell-O to a wall,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/nail%20Jell-O%20to%20a%20wall.

Source: nail Jell-O to a wall on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.