Could Be a Wild Goose Chase?

If you are on a wild goose chase, you waste a lot of time searching for something that you have little chance of finding, because you have been given incorrect information. Harry wondered if Potts had deliberately sent him on a wild goose chase.

What does the phrase a wild goose chase meaning?

: a complicated or lengthy and usually fruitless pursuit or search These errors had two fatal consequences. The most obvious was that a number of engines and dozens of firefighters were sent on a wild-goose chase and did not get to the fire for many minutes.—

Where did the expression wild goose chase come from?

The idiom wild goose chase was first written down by William Shakespeare, in the play Romeo and Juliet in 1595: “Nay, if thy wits run the wild-goose chase, I have done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than, I am sure, I have in my whole five.” Interestingly, the term wild goose chase was first ...