Boiling the Ocean


Also found in: Dictionary, Idioms.

Boiling the Ocean

In business, the act or practice of attempting a project that is impossible because it is too broad or poorly defined. For example, a grant proposal to build a youth center could be described as boiling the ocean if it does not specify what programs would be offered there. The term is used most commonly by persons trying to avoid projects of this nature.
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There's a very well-known phrase called "boiling the ocean" that describes this notion well.
Pitfalls at the Pit: here are seven common things you should not do when problem solving
You can try to do that, but it will be like boiling the ocean.
Words at work
He says of the W3C approach, "It's like boiling the ocean. I think Berners-Lee set the bar pretty high." Strohlein explains that with semantic technology, you have three layers--meaning, code, and content--and the semantic technology separates these three layers from one another.
Content delivery rides the semantic wave
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