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wild-goose chase
[ wahyld-goos ]
noun
- a wild or absurd search for something nonexistent or unobtainable:
a wild-goose chase looking for a building long demolished.
- any senseless pursuit of an object or end; a hopeless enterprise:
Her scheme of being a movie star is a wild-goose chase.
wild-goose chase
noun
- an absurd or hopeless pursuit, as of something unattainable
Word History and Origins
Origin of wild-goose chase1
Idioms and Phrases
A futile search or pursuit, as in I think she sent us on a wild goose chase looking for their beach house . This idiom originally referred to a form of 16th-century horseracing requiring riders to follow a leader in a particular formation (presumably resembling a flock of geese in flight). Its figurative use dates from about 1600.Example Sentences
People might well have argued that it was a waste of money to send Christopher Columbus on a wild goose chase.
"If you tell me to I s'pose I must, but I think it's a wild-goose chase anyhow," was the disapproving answer.
"I like him well enough to go on a wild-goose chase in search of him," the lady replied.
Miss Waller instantly denounced the scheme as a wild-goose chase, asserting that May was certain to lose her way.
In another minute he'd be on his way to a strange sun and a strange world, on what might well be the wild-goose chase of all time.
But nothing could be heard at first, and Mr. Blowitt again intimated that they were engaged in a "wild-goose chase."
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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