FISHING EXPEDITION Definition & Meaning

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fishing expedition

noun

Informal.

a legal proceeding mainly for the purpose of interrogating a suspect, or of examining their property and documents, in order to gain useful information.
any inquiry carried on without any clearly defined plan or purpose in the hope of discovering useful information.

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�y��vlog History and Origins

Origin of fishing expedition¹

First recorded in 1960–65

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Idioms and Phrases

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]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Vaughan Gething first responded the next day, claiming the request was a "fishing expedition" and that his constituents would expect correspondence on their behalf by an elected representative to remain confidential.

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Her attorney had told the board she wouldn’t participate in an “illegal fishing expedition.”

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“It’s more than just a fishing expedition. They think it will bear fruit.”

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He wrote that subpoena and the demands therein “are the very definition of a fishing expedition.”

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Baggett dismissed the probe as a “fishing expedition” or worse, adding: “I hope it’s not a political witch hunt.”

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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