Meaning
Announces that a pursuit, venture, or operation has begun, usually with relish or anticipation. Once a literal hunting observation that the quarry had been roused, it now marks the start of any enterprise from an investigation to a political contest, and it carries a theatrical, adventurous ring thanks to decades of detective fiction. Playful, spirited register with an adventurous flavour, consciously or unconsciously echoing its detective-fiction pedigree. Regional use: General English (Shakespearean origin).
Origin
The earliest known use is in Henry IV Part 1 (1597 per The Phrase Finder), Act 1 Scene 3, where Northumberland checks his impatient son Hotspur with 'Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip' - a hunting image about loosing the dogs before the quarry is even roused. The Phrase Finder files the phrase among Shakespeare's coinages. Its modern currency owes far more to Sherlock Holmes: in 'The Adventure of the Abbey Grange' (collected in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, 1905) Arthur Conan Doyle has Holmes cry 'Come, Watson, come!... The game is afoot', and screen and stage adaptations made the line his signature rallying cry, carrying the hunting metaphor into everyday English for anything newly underway.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- the game is on
- the game's afoot
- the hunt is on
Usage Examples
- The moment the tip-off reached the newsroom, the game was afoot.
- 'Complaints have doubled in a single week,' she told the team. 'The game is afoot - let's find out why.'
- As soon as the first leaked memo surfaced, the game was afoot among the budget committees.