Wild goose

(Also with hyphen.) Forms: see WILD a. and GOOSE; also 7 wilgosse. [Cf. (M)HG. wildgans, Sw. vildgås, Da. vildgaas.]

  1.  Any wild bird of the goose kind; an undomesticated goose; in Britain usually the greylag (Anser ferus or cinereus), in N. America the Canada goose (Bernicla canadensis).

c. 1050.  Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 364/1. Cente, wilde gos.

c. 1325.  Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., in Wright, Voc., 165. Jo voy là une owe rossée [gloss a wilde-gos].

c. 1440.  Lydg., Hors, Shepe & G., 171. Whan wilde gees hihe in the ayer vp fleen.

1513.  Bradshaw, St. Werburge, I. 2619. A great multytude somtyme of wylde gees, Comunely called Gauntes.

1597.  Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., V. i. 79. They flocke together in consent, like so many Wilde-Geese. Ibid. (1600), A. Y. L., II. vii. 86. If he be free, Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies Vnclaim’d of any man.

1752.  Hill, Hist. Anim., 421. We have the wild goose flying over our heads, in the fens of Lincolnshire, in vast flocks.

1845.  Whittier, The Lumbermen, ii.

  2.  fig. a. Used of or in reference to a flighty or foolish person: cf. GOOSE sb. 1 f. b. Eng. Hist. (pl.) A nickname for the Irish Jacobites who went over to the Continent on the abdication of James II. and later.

1592.  [see WILD GOOSE CHASE 2].

1843.  M. J. Barry, in Spirit of the Nation (Dublin, 1845), 230. The wild geese—the wild geese,—’tis long since they flew, O’er the billowy ocean’s bright bosom of blue. Ibid. (1845), 231, note. The recruits for the Irish Brigade … were entered on the ship’s books as ‘wild geese.’

1845.  M. O’Conor, Milit. Hist. Irish Nation, 367, note. Clare, it may be added, was a great recruiting county for the Brigade. On its stern coast the French used to land smuggled claret, brandy, &c., and take away wool, and, what was more precious, ‘Wild Geese,’ for such was the name usually given to the recruits for ‘The bold Brigade.’

1872.  Tennyson, Gareth & Lynette, 36. Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.

1881.  Froude, Eng. in Irel., II. iii. I. 405. In 1715 … Tens of thousands of young Irishmen were in the French service, and thousands more were continually recruited under the name of Wild Geese.

1902.  in Emily Lawless, With the Wild Geese, Pref. p. viii. The ‘Wild Geese’ was the name given … to the exiles who, like the wild birds … migrated to the Continent before and after the Battle of Aughrim, and the Surrender of Limerick in 1691.

  3.  attrib. a. [after WILD GOOSE CHASE 2, as apprehended in later use.] Wild, fantastic, very foolish or risky.

1770.  Cumberland, West Indian, II. xi. To fit him out upon come wild-goose expedition to the coast of Africa.

1781.  Cowper, Anti-Thelyphthora, 53. She tutor’d some in Dædalus’s art, And promis’d they would act his wildgoose part.

1833.  T. Hook, Parson’s Dau., III. vi. ‘All mad, wild-goose nonsense,’ said MacGopus.

1841.  Dickens, Barn. Rudge, iv. He’ll … have gone away upon some wild-goose errand, seeking his fortune.

  b.  Wild-goose plum, rye, names for N. American varieties of those plants raised from seeds found in the crops of wild geese; wild-goose race = next.

1909.  Month, Dec., 599. A well-known American plum is called the *‘wild-goose’ plum, because a plum-stone from which the whole race has been raised was found in the stomach of such a bird.

1594.  Willobie, Avisa (1880), 83. As weary of this *wild-goose race That led askance, I know not where.

1624.  Gataker, Transubst., 145. As one running the wild goose race, he windeth backe to a passage in the former argument.

1884.  Lisbon (Dakota) Star, 15 Aug. The introduction of *wild goose rye into Dakota.