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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
He considered leading me off on some wild-goose chase.
One of the cinematic highlights of the 2024 New York International Children’s Film Festival could be described, at least partly, as a wild-goose chase.
At least the Victorians were just sending their friends on a wild-goose chase to be funny, and not actively poisoning them.
At one point, he lodged hairs he found in a bus station restroom between the layers of electrical tape on a bomb’s wire connections, hoping to initiate a genetic wild-goose chase.
Capitol and twist it into a wild-goose chase driven by ludicrous allegations that the FBI was behind the whole thing.
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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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