connect the dots | Idiomator

Meaning: (literally)To attempt to complete apuzzlein which dots on apapermust be connected in a specificorderso that thejoininglinesform apicture.1991, Roberta Collier,The Little Animal Follow-The-Dots Coloring Book, Courier Corporation,→ISBN, page 3:Toconnect the dots, use a pen or pencil and draw a line from dot 1 to dot 2, from dot 2 to dot 3 and so on until all the dots are connected. You can try to guess what kind of animal is shown in the picture before youconnect the dots.; (by extension,idiomatic)To makeconnectionsin one'smind,in order toarrive at a moreholisticunderstandingof asituation.2003September 25,Thomas L. Friedman, quotingClyde Prestowitz, “Connect The Dots”, inNew York Times‎[1]:If only the Bush teamconnected the dots, it would see what a nutty war on terrorism it is fighting, explains Mr. Prestowitz.2023July 9, AP, quoting Chris Gloninger, “‘You should have seen this note’: US meteorologists harassed for reporting on climate crisis”, inThe Guardian‎[2],→ISSN:“I started justconnecting the dotsbetween extreme weather and climate change, and then the volume of pushback started to increase quite dramatically,” he said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Examples:

EN: Hope to see you again soon. I want to connect the dots on these ideas.
ES: Espero verle de nuevo y profundizar sobre el tema.
EN: A Trotskyite, became a Jesus freak, and was arrested for selling pornographic connect the dots books.
ES: Una fanática del Jesús trotskista. La arrestaron por vender pornografía.
EN: I don't expect it to explain all that much, but what's a story anyway, except one of those connect the dots drawings that in the end forms a picture of something.
ES: lo cual no explicará mucho... Una historia como la de esos dibujos con puntos que se unen por líneas... y que terminan por formar una imagen.
EN: See, if I can connect the dots between Meccacci, and the slot machines, we link the machines to the crime, and the crime to Meccacci.
ES: Rojinsky, tengo que encontrar una conexión... entre Mecacci y las máquinas. Luego relaciono las máquinas con el crimen... y finalmente relaciono el crimen con Mecacci.
EN: It won't take them long to connect the dots.
ES: No les costará mucho atar cabos.
EN: If he can't connect the dots, they never gonna penetrate.
ES: Si no unen los puntos, nunca penetrarán.
EN: I put them together in a courtroom, a jury can't help but connect the dots.
ES: Los pongo juntos en una corte un jurado solo puede ayudar a sacar conclusiones.
EN: - You don't have to be a genius to connect the dots.
ES: - Eso no prueba nada. - Hey, no hace falta ser un genio para atar cabos.
EN: You'd like me to connect the dots for you, from A to B to C, so that your puny mind could comprehend?
ES: ¿Quiere que una los puntos para usted, de A a B a C, para que su cabeza de chorlito lo comprenda?
EN: Hey... remember those puzzles where you had to connect the dots?
ES: ¿Te acuerdas de esos dibujos de unir los puntos?
EN: If you want to connect the dots here, you should look at the facts.
ES: Si quieres unir los cabos, debes estudiar los hechos.
EN: - Do I have to connect the dots?
ES: - ¿ Voy a tener que dibujártelo?
EN: Gotta connect the dots.
ES: Es como conectar puntillos.
EN: You don't want them to connect the dots, believe me.
ES: Créeme, no te gustaría que sacaran conclusiones.
EN: You're a smart guy, Alex. You connect the dots.
ES: Tú eres inteligente, Alex, conecta los puntos.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).