STALKING-HORSE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Stalking-horse

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/stˈɔkɪŋ-hɔrs/ Listen

Stalking-horse

noun

A candidate put forward to divide the Opposition or to mask the true candidate.

Something serving to conceal plans; a fictitious reason that is concocted in order to conceal the real reason. Synonym: pretext.

Screen consisting of a figure of a horse behind which a hunter hides while stalking game.

A horse behind which a hunter hides while stalking game.

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Etymology of 'Stalking-horse'

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"Stalking-horse" Quotes from Famous Books

... saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old already: he had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking-horse. Latterly he was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the parish register worth all the reasons in the world. "I am old and well stricken in years," he was wont to say; ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said Christian, Even a babe in religion may answer ten thousand such questions. For if it be unlawful to follow Christ for loaves, (as it is in the sixth of John), how much more abominable is it to make of him and religion a stalking-horse to get and enjoy the world! Nor do we find any other than heathens, hypocrites, devils, and witches, that ...

— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan

Words linked to "Stalking-horse" : pretence, pretense, feigning, screen, horse, candidate, cover, dissembling, putoff, concealment, nominee, campaigner, covert, Equus caballus