Word.ws English Dictionary

chase one's own tail

chase one's own tail is the alternative form of chase one's tail.

Meaning of chase one's tail

Verb

chase one's tail (third-person singular simple present chases one's tail, present participle chasing one's tail, simple past and past participle chased one's tail)

  1. (idiomatic) To busily try to perform many tasks or to repeatedly revise one's plans, especially with inefficient use of one's time and limited results.
    • People wanting to get married . . . would have to trail around separately to arrange flowers, cars, a photographer, the cake and a reception venue. . . . "At the moment, they have to chase their tail making sure all these things are done."1994 August 4, Lynn Eaton, “Planning a wedding in one easy stop”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 26 Jun 2014
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chase, one's, tail.

Forms of chase one's own tail

third-person singular presentchases one's own tail
present participlechasing one's own tail
past participlechased one's own tail
pastchased one's own tail

Questions about chase one's own tail

What is chase one's own tail the alternative form of?
Chase one's own tail is the alternative form of chase one's tail.

Words near chase one's own tail in the dictionary

  1. chase down
  2. chase gun
  3. chase guns
  4. chase moonbeams
  5. chase off
  6. chase one's own tail
  7. chase one's tail
  8. chase pennies with dollars
  9. chase plane
  10. chase planes
  11. chase port

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chase one's own tail (page history and authors); chase one's tail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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