chase

chase the dragon take heroin (sometimes mixed with another smokable drug) by heating it in tinfoil and inhaling the fumes through a tube or roll of paper.

☞ Chase the dragon is reputedly a translation from Chinese. The expression apparently refers to the undulating movements of the fumes up and down the tinfoil, resembling those of the tail of a dragon, a creature found in many Chinese myths.

chase the game (in football and other sports) adopt attacking tactics, especially when losing, at the risk of being vulnerable to counter-attack.

chase rainbows: seerainbow.

chase your (own) tail keep on doing something futile. informal

cut to the chase come to the point. North American informal. ☞In this idiom, cut is being used in the cinematographic sense 'move to another shot in a film'. Chase scenes are a particularly exciting feature of some films, and the idiom expresses the idea of ignoring any preliminaries and coming immediately to the most important part.

2018Ruth WareThe Death of Mrs Westaway Clearly there's something he's circling around, and I for one would like to cut to the chase and find out what it is.

go and chase yourself! go away! informal

a wild goose chase: seewild.