fishing expedition
Slang Dictionary

fishing expedition definition


  1. n.
    an exploratory search for facts. (This involves asking questions with no preconceived notion of what the answers might reveal.) : The lawyer was on a fishing expedition. There was no real wrong committed to justify a lawsuit.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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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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