fishing expedition
Use Fishing expedition in a sentencefishing expedition
noun Informal.
1.
a legal proceeding mainly for the purpose of interrogating an adversary, or of examining his or her property and documents, in order to gain useful information.
2.
any inquiry carried on without any clearly defined plan or purpose in the hope of discovering useful information.
Also called fishing trip.
Origin:
1960–65
1960–65
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source
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Link To fishing expedition
Slang Dictionary
fishing expedition definition
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Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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00:10
Fishing expedition
is always a great word to know.
So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:
| a fool or simpleton; ninny. |
| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases
fishing expedition
An attempt to find useful information by asking questions at random. For example, The sales force was told to go on a fishing expedition to find out what they could about the company's competitors. This expression was taken up by lawyers to describe interrogating an adversary in hopes of finding relevant evidence and is now used more broadly still. [c. 1930]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Example sentences
By combining with other search channels, physicists are casting an increasingly broad net in this subatomic fishing expedition.
But at the same time, the genome wide fishing expedition didn't turn up empty.
If you don't live on the coast, take a riverboat cruise or go on a fishing expedition.
The defendants urged the court not to allow a fishing expedition.
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