See wild-goose chase on Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Early recorded use refers to a type of 16th century horse race where everyone had to try to follow the erratic course of the lead horse, like wild geese have to follow their leader in formation. Mentioned in 1593 in the English poet Gervase Markham’s book about horsemanship. Also mentioned in the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, scene 4 by the character Mercutio: “Nay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase, I am done; for thou hast more of the wild goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.” Mentioned in Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). Common use in the current may be the origin for the sport sense.",
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"text": "I went on a wild-goose chase all over the town looking for that adapter until I discovered they no longer make them.",
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{
"text": "Diagnosing this software application's problems is a wild-goose chase because it is built in an environment that has poor debugging tools.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"ref": "1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:",
"text": "From the beginning he has never concealed his belief that Professor Challenger is an absolute fraud, that we are all embarked upon an absurd wild-goose chase and that we are likely to reap nothing but disappointment and danger in South America, and corresponding ridicule in England.",
"type": "quote"
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"glosses": [
"A futile search, a fruitless errand; a useless and often lengthy task whose execution is inordinately complex relative to the value of the outcome."
],
"id": "en-wild-goose_chase-en-noun-RqEr7cUT",
"links": [
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"raw_glosses": [
"(figuratively) A futile search, a fruitless errand; a useless and often lengthy task whose execution is inordinately complex relative to the value of the outcome."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "exercise in futility"
},
{
"word": "fool's errand"
},
{
"word": "red herring"
},
{
"word": "the cake is a lie"
},
{
"word": "tilt at windmills"
},
{
"word": "chase a rainbow"
},
{
"word": "go off into the weeds"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "merry dance"
},
{
"word": "wild goose chase"
}
],
"tags": [
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"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "竹籃打水"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zhúlándǎshuǐ",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "竹篮打水"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "徒勞"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "túláo",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "徒劳"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "neulan etsiminen heinäsuovasta"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "hukkareissu"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "veluri bač̣iani devna",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "ველური ბაჭიანი დევნა"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"note": "no equivalent term in German",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"neuter"
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"word": "but see sinnloses Unterfangen"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
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"word": "fruchtloses Unterfangen"
},
{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "מרדף שווא"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "ricerca inutile"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "ricerca vana"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "caccia ai fantasmi"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "sforzo inutile"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "szukanie wiatru w polu"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "caça aos gambozinos"
},
{
"code": "gd",
"lang": "Scottish Gaelic",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "air gnothaich na cuthaig"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "búsqueda inútil"
}
],
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"Gervase Markham",
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"word": "wild-goose chase"
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"word": "exercise in futility"
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"word": "fool's errand"
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"word": "red herring"
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{
"word": "the cake is a lie"
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{
"word": "tilt at windmills"
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"word": "chase a rainbow"
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"text": "Diagnosing this software application's problems is a wild-goose chase because it is built in an environment that has poor debugging tools.",
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"(figuratively) A futile search, a fruitless errand; a useless and often lengthy task whose execution is inordinately complex relative to the value of the outcome."
],
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"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "竹籃打水"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zhúlándǎshuǐ",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "竹篮打水"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "徒勞"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "túláo",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "徒劳"
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{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "neulan etsiminen heinäsuovasta"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "hukkareissu"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "veluri bač̣iani devna",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "ველური ბაჭიანი დევნა"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"note": "no equivalent term in German",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
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"lang": "German",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
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"word": "fruchtloses Unterfangen"
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{
"code": "he",
"lang": "Hebrew",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "מרדף שווא"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "ricerca inutile"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
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"word": "ricerca vana"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
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"word": "caccia ai fantasmi"
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{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"masculine"
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"word": "sforzo inutile"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "szukanie wiatru w polu"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
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"word": "caça aos gambozinos"
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"code": "gd",
"lang": "Scottish Gaelic",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"word": "air gnothaich na cuthaig"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "fruitless, futile pursuit",
"tags": [
"feminine"
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"word": "búsqueda inútil"
}
],
"word": "wild-goose chase"
}
Download raw JSONL data for wild-goose chase meaning in All languages combined (6.0kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.