trial balloon
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Noun
trial balloon (plural trial balloons)
- (idiomatic) An idea, suggestion, or prospective action, product, etc. offered to an audience or group in order to test whether it generates acceptance or interest.
- 1925, "Tariff: Campaign Issue," Time, 30 Nov.:
- Congressman Cordell Hull, onetime Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, last week issued a statement, as a sort of trial balloon no doubt, linking the high tariff with failure to get 100 cents on a dollar in payment on War debts from Europe.
- 2006, Suzan Fraser, "Icahn Floats Time Warner Portal Merger Idea For Comment," FinancialWire, 19 Jan. (retrieved 27 Jan 2010):
- Billionaire investor Carl Icahn and his investment group reportedly floated an idea to merge certain Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) assets with an undisclosed web portal. . . . "This trail balloon, or rumor, lacks the specificity [necessary] for a thorough response," said a Time Warner spokeswoman.
- 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in The Guardian[1]:
- No one in the day-to-day hustle of e-commerce talks very seriously about the kind of trial-balloon gimmicks that claim to revolutionise the last mile: deliveries by drones and parachutes and autonomous vehicles, zeppelin warehouses, robots on sidewalks.
- 1925, "Tariff: Campaign Issue," Time, 30 Nov.:
Translations
idea or suggestion
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See also
References
- “trial balloon”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.