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:
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.
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.