How do you say “A wild goose chase” in Spanish?
The closest natural Spanish equivalent is Una búsqueda inútil, which literally means “A useless search”. English speakers use a wild goose chase to mean a long search that leads nowhere. Natural descriptive wording for a search that leads nowhere. It loses the English humour but avoids suggesting a different kind of failure. Register: informal, neutral. Usage frequency: common.
Closest natural Spanish
Una búsqueda inútil
/ˈuna ˈbuskeda iˈnutil/
- Literal meaning
- “A useless search”
- Register
- informal, neutral
- How often it's used
- common
- Equivalence
Near-exact equivalent
90 out of 100
What a native Spanish speaker would actually say
English makes the wasted search into an animal chase. Spanish can describe the useless search directly.
“Una búsqueda inútil” is less playful and states the failure clearly. It does not imply that someone deliberately misled you unless you add that context.
How close is the meaning?
- Meaning5 out of 5
- Tone4 out of 5
- Context5 out of 5
- Literal similarity1 out of 5
These ratings are editorial approximations, not measurements.
What are other ways to say it in Spanish?
Dar vueltas para nada
Literally: “To go around for nothing”
Conversational, and stresses wasted movement or effort.
Una búsqueda sin resultado
Literally: “A search without result”
Neutral wording that states the outcome without judging the search.
Common translation traps
Una persecución de gansos salvajes
This suggests chasing actual wild geese, rather than a pointless search.
The notes above explain why these versions do not work in this context in Spanish.
In context
English
The wrong address sent us on a wild goose chase.
Spanish
La dirección equivocada nos hizo perder el tiempo en una búsqueda inútil.
English
We spent the afternoon on a wild goose chase for a shop that had closed.
Spanish
Pasamos la tarde buscando en vano una tienda que ya había cerrado.
Related expressions
- What “A wild goose chase” means in English
- Barking up the wrong tree, To be completely mistaken.
- Miss the boat, To be too late for an opportunity.
Last updated 2026-09-13