gone fishing

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

not available or working, often due to a deliberate choice

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

không có sẵn hoặc không làm việc, thường do lựa chọn cố ý

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: engaged in the act of fishing
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The IT department is gone fishing for the weekend, so we can't get support

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “gone fishing” mean?

not available or working, often due to a deliberate choice Literally: engaged in the act of fishing

Is “gone fishing” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.