red herring
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From a story by William Cobbett, c. 1805, in which he claimed that as a boy he used a red herring (a cured and salted herring) to mislead hounds following a trail; the story served as an extended metaphor for the London press, which had earned Cobbett's ire by publishing false news accounts regarding Napoleon.
Until 2008, the accepted etymology of the idiom was that red herring were used to train dogs to track scents. This has proven to be a false etymology, most likely intentionally introduced as a prank that defines the idiom by example: a false trail within the etymology of an idiom that stands for a false trail.
[edit] Noun
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Plural |
red herring (plural red herrings)
- A smoke-cured herring.
- (idiomatic) A clue that is misleading or that has been falsified, intended to divert attention.
- “Gall, the guy that does the hyp act is too shrewd, I think, to have committed such a smart murder and left himself with his pants down with no other red herring around.” --Svengali Kill [1]
[edit] Translations
smoke-cured herring
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misleading clue
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[edit] See also
[edit] References
- 2008, Michael Quinlon, "The Lure of the Red Herring", World Wide Words.
