in the weeds

Green's suggests an image or expression from golfing of US origin, from the difficulty of playing when the golf ball gets stuck in the weeds.^[1]

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in the weeds

1. (figurative, informal, originally US) Immersed or entangled in details or complexities.

   to get lost in the weeds

   • 2003 December 29, Michael Duffy, Mark Thompson, “Secretary of war”, in CNN, retrieved 21 Sept 2013:

     It was in a series of such back-and-forth sessions that Rumsfeld crafted the war on Iraq. […] [G]enerals were alarmed to see a Defense Secretary get so far down in the weeds of a military operation.

   • 2009 December 5, Peter Baker, “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, retrieved 21 Sept 2013:

     Mr. Obama devoted so much time to the Afghan issue — nearly 11 hours on the day after Thanksgiving alone — that he joked, “I’ve got more deeply in the weeds than a president should, and now you guys need to solve this.”

   • 2012 May 19, Stephen Foley, “Business: Jamie Dimon has become Exhibit A in the case for regulation”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 21 Sept 2013:

     In order to ban prop trading, you first have to define it, and when you try, you are immediately in the weeds.

   • 2016 September 26, John Abraham, “The Madhouse Effect of climate denial”, in The Guardian‎^[1], →ISSN:

     For readers who may be concerned about getting lost in the weeds, don’t worry. The authors do an excellent job hitting high points in an intelligible manner so that readers don’t need a PhD in climate science to see the patterns.

   • 2022 September 15, Melissa Harrison, “Retrospective by Juan Gabriel Vásquez review – Mao, movies and me”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:

     […] many today will recognise in it the tendency of the left to prioritise ideological purity over concrete action, get lost in the weeds of theory and language, and ultimately turn on itself.

2. (restaurant slang, of a cook, bartender, or server) Overwhelmed with diners' orders.

   Synonym: in over one's head

   • 1998 June 24, Eric Asimov, “The First Job: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, retrieved 21 Sept 2013:

     Anger may be the only recourse when you're "in the weeds," as chefs call the nightmare of not being ready when orders pour in and you fall behind and can't see a way out.

   • 2001, Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections, →ISBN, page 416:

     She saw that she was in the weeds on every front. There were unanswered phone messages from a food writer at the Times, from an editor at Gourmet, and from the latest restaurateur hoping to steal Brian’s chef.

   • 2009 October 22, “'Top Chef' Las Vegas Power Rankings: 'Restaurant Wars'”, in starpulse.com, retrieved 21 Sept 2013:

     She took on way too much work in the kitchen and didn't know when to say when. […] Like one of the judges said, "No matter how great a chef you are, once you get in the weeds, it's over."

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see in,‎ the,‎ weeds.
   • 2021 March 13, Sabrina Imbler, “A Bug’s Life”, in The Atlantic‎^[3], →ISSN:

     Sometimes, while she rooted around in the weeds to place her camera, the meadow resisted—thorns scratched her arm and insects bit her fingers.

• “in the weeds”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “in the weeds”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.