Meaning
A hopeless, futile search or pursuit that wastes time and effort chasing something that can’t be caught or found.
It’s typically used after the fact, once the pointlessness of the errand has become clear.
Origin
The phrase has nothing to do with actual geese for most of its history. It began in 16th-century England as the name of a horse race in which riders had to follow the lead horse’s course at a fixed distance, their path zigzagging unpredictably the way wild geese fly in a loose, shifting formation — the earliest known use of the term in this sense. Shakespeare used “wild-goose chase” in this literal horse-racing meaning in “Romeo and Juliet” (1597). Over the following century the expression drifted from naming a specific chaotic horse race to describing any pursuit that rambles on pointlessly, and by the 18th century it had settled into its modern sense of a fruitless, wasted errand.
Examples
Looking for that old receipt turned into a wild goose chase.
The detective realized too late he was on a wild goose chase.
Don’t send me on another wild goose chase for parking downtown.
A: Did you find the missing file? B: No, it was a total wild goose chase.
Frequently asked questions
What does 'Wild goose chase' mean?
A hopeless, futile search or pursuit that wastes time and effort chasing something that can’t be caught or found.
It’s typically used after the fact, once the pointlessness of the errand has become clear.