phone tag: meaning & examples

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Language: English

Meanings:

  • 1.

    US EnglishUK EnglishGlobal Englishinformal
    • A situation in which two or more people repeatedly call each other at different times but continually miss one another, resulting in a series of missed calls and returned calls; the back-and-forth of unsuccessful telephone attempts.
    • To engage in such a sequence of missed calls with someone (as a verb phrase: 'to play phone tag').

    Examples

    Beta

    • We were playing phone tag all afternoon, missing each other’s calls repeatedly.

      Nous avons joué au téléphone-chasse toute l'après-midi, manquant à plusieurs reprises les appels de l'autre.

    • I’ll try to call you again tomorrow, but if we keep playing phone tag, we might never connect.

      Je vais essayer de te rappeler demain, mais si on continue à jouer au téléphone-chasse, on ne se connectera jamais.

    • After several rounds of phone tag, they finally managed to speak and arrange the meeting.

      Après plusieurs tours de téléphone-chasse, ils ont finalement réussi à parler et à organiser la réunion.

    • Did you notice how much phone tag there was between the two departments last week?

      As-tu remarqué combien de téléphone-chasse il y avait entre les deux départements la semaine dernière ?

Examples:

  • EN: The person you were playing phone tag with last night.
    ES: La persona con la que estabas hablando anoche.
  • EN: It was a simple game of phone tag.
    ES: Era un simple círculo de llamadas.
  • EN: -I'm playing phone tag with Brian.
    ES: - Brian y yo no logramos comunicarnos.
  • EN: - We're playing phone tag.
    ES: - Nunca nos encontramos.
  • EN: I'm sorry we had to play phone tag the last couple of days.
    ES: Lo siento, tuvimos que jugar al teléfono descompuesto.
  • EN: We play phone tag.
    ES: Nos dejamos mensajes telefénicos.
  • EN: I'm not sitting around while you play phone tag.
    ES: No me voy a quedar sentado mientras haces tus juegos burocráticos.
  • EN: Oh, we're playing phone tag.
    ES: Ah, estamos jugando a dejarnos mensajes.
  • EN: Sorry we've been playing phone tag.
    ES: Lamento que no nos hayamos encontrado.
  • EN: Yeah, we're playing phone tag.
    ES: - Si conseguimos que se ponga al teléfono...
  • EN: I've been calling and we've been playing phone tag and I thought that if I came down... - Okay.
    ES: He estado llamando y no los localizo y pensé que si venía, quizá...
  • EN: I've been playing phone tag with Uncle Clive's solicitor
    ES: He estado jugando esctribiendo telefónicacmente con el abogado el tío del Clive.
  • EN: Well, we've been playing phone tag with a new client from New York all day.
    ES: Hemos estado tratando de localizar a un cliente de Nueva York.
  • EN: We're having ourselves a game of phone tag here.
    ES: Ahora sí andamos jugando al gato y al ratón por teléfono.
  • EN: Ah, we've been playing phone tag.
    ES: Estuvimos jugando a las escondidas.

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Sourced from Wiktionary

Source: Wiktionary

phone tag: Meaning, Examples & Usage (English) | Idiomator