goose

cook someone's goose (informal)

if you cook someone's goose, you do something that spoils their plans and prevents them from succeeding. Disgruntled employees cooked Blackledge's goose by leaking private documents to the press.

See also: cook

kill the goose that lays the golden egg

to destroy something that makes a lot of money. If you sell your shares now, you could be killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

See also: egg, golden, kill, lay, that

What's sauce for the goose (is sauce for the gander). (British, American & Australian, old-fashioned, American & Australian, old-fashioned)

something that you say to suggest that if a particular type of behaviour is acceptable for one person, it should also be acceptable for another person. If your husband can go out with his friends, then surely you can go out with yours. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

a wild-goose chase

a situation where you waste time looking for something that you are not going to find, either because that thing does not exist or because you have been given wrong information about it. After two hours spent wandering in the snow, I realised we were on a wild-goose chase. When I found out that there was no Anita Hill at the university, I began to suspect that I had been sent on a wild-goose chase.

See also: chase

wouldn't say boo to a goose (British, informal, American, informal, Australian, informal)

if someone wouldn't say boo to a goose, they are shy and nervous. She wouldn't say boo to a goose, so I don't think she's cut out for a career in the police. I remember her as a quiet little girl who wouldn't say boo.

See also: boo, say, wouldn't