1
general::
Phrase(s): gone with the wind
Fig. gone as if taken away by the wind. (A phrase made famous by the Margaret Mitchell novel and subsequent film Gone with the Wind. The phrase is used to make gone have a stronger force.) • Everything we worked for was gone with the wind.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs
2
general::
Disappeared, gone forever, as in With these unforeseen expenses, our profits are gone with the wind. This phrase became famous as the title of Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel, which alludes to the Civil War's causing the disappearance of a Southern way of life. It mainly serves as an intensifier of gone.
American Heritage Idioms