Meaning
Someone or something desirable that escaped or was lost and whose loss one still regrets; in its commonest modern use, a former romantic partner who lingers in memory as a lost ideal. Wiktionary defines it as a former partner who retains a special place in one's memory and whose loss one regrets; Farlex as something desirable that has eluded capture. Treat the fishing origin as a dictionary's assertion rather than a documented early record: no dated 19th-century angling use surfaced in the sources fetched, and Wiktionary's earliest romantic citation is only 1997. Applies beyond romance to missed deals, signings and chances. Regional use: Widespread in English-speaking countries; strongly current in US and UK pop culture.
Origin
The standard account, from the Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary, is that the phrase comes from 'the angler's traditional way of relating the story of a large fish that has managed to escape after almost being caught' - you should have seen the one that got away - the joke being that the unverifiable fish grows larger with every retelling. No source checked supplies a dated first use: Wiktionary gives no etymology, and its citations page shows the romantic sense from a 1997 Usenet post ('She is the fantasy he can't have. The one that got away.'). The looser escapee sense is older in titles: a 1957 British film, The One That Got Away, dramatized the escaped German pilot Franz von Werra, and the romantic pattern has a mid-century relative in the torch song 'The Man That Got Away', written by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin for the 1954 film A Star Is Born and sung by Judy Garland. Katy Perry's single 'The One That Got Away' (2011, from Teenage Dream) is a well-known recent romantic use.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- the one who got away
- the ones that got away
- TOTGA
Usage Examples
- He married happily, yet still raises a glass to the one that got away every New Year.
- For the scout, the striker he failed to sign became the one that got away.
- Ask any angler about the one that got away, and the fish grows an inch with every telling.