Word.ws English Dictionary

chase one's tail

chase one's tail verb: 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.

chase one's tail: to busily try to perform many tasks or to repeatedly revise one's plans, especially with...
Image: SonyaBluvshtein, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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
    • "You're forever chasing your tail when you're dealing with such large areas. . . . It was difficult to see how we would ever get on top of the problem."2001 July 2, Lisa Clausen, “Warren Peace Australia missed its first chance to wipe out the rabbit scourge”, in Time, retrieved 26 Jun 2014
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see chase, one's, tail.

Forms of chase one's tail

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

Origin of chase one's tail

From obsessive behavior observed in some dogs. The figurative sense refers to the frenzied activity without any useful purpose inherent in this behavior

Questions about chase one's tail

What does chase one's tail mean?
Chase one's tail means 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.
What part of speech is chase one's tail?
Chase one's tail is a verb.
What is the past tense of chase one's tail?
The past tense of chase one's tail is chased one's tail.

Words near chase one's tail in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-chase one's tail.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chase one's tail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chase_one%27s_tail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.