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Chase one's tail

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

To engage in futile, circular activity that achieves nothing; to expend energy without making progress toward a goal.

Detailed Definition
Derived from the image of a dog pursuing its own tail in endless circles, this idiom captures the absurdity of circular effort. In poetry, it appears in works exploring obsession, bureaucratic frustration, grief's repetitive logic, or the cyclical nature of certain kinds of suffering. Poets use it to satirize political systems that appear to act but produce nothing, or to capture the psychological loops of anxiety and rumination. Its comic animal imagery can deflate pretension while simultaneously expressing genuine anguish at wasted potential. The circularity it describes mirrors certain formal poetic structures—villanelles, refrains, pantoums—where repetition is both the form and the subject, creating resonant aesthetic counterpoint.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about obsessive rumination might use chase one's tail to describe the mind's circular return to the same thought — worry producing no resolution, only the next rotation of the same circuit; In a poem about bureaucratic process, to chase one's tail is to follow the procedure that loops back to its own beginning — the form that requires the document that requires the form; The villanelle, with its formal requirement for repeated lines, becomes a natural vehicle for a poem about chasing one's tail — the form enacting the content, the repetition itself the subject; In a political poem, the administration that chases its tail — generating activity without progress, movement without direction — becomes a figure for government as performance rather than governance; A poem about the creative process might describe early drafts as chasing one's tail — the poem circling what it wants to say without finding the line that breaks the circuit and arrives; The dog pursuing its own tail offers a comic image that contains genuine pathos — the animal's earnest effort misdirected at its own self, and a poem might use this to explore the tender absurdity of certain human efforts that are similarly, energetically futile
Additional Notes
This idiom presents futility through circular animal movement. In poetry, it can describe repetitive thought, pointless argument, addictive behaviour, or bureaucratic delay. It is useful when the speaker recognises activity without progress. Related images include spinning wheels, roundabouts, eddies, loops, mirrors, and the comic sadness of energy spent in pursuit of oneself.
Also Known As
Spin one’s wheels Go in circles
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