STALKING-HORSE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Stalking-horse

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Stalking-horse n.

A horse, or a figure resembling a horse, behind which a hunter conceals himself from the game he is aiming to kill.

Fig.: Something used to cover up a secret project; a mask; a pretense. "Hypocrisy is the devil's stalking-horse under an affectation of simplicity and religion." "How much more abominable is it to make of him (Christ) and religion a stalking-horse, to get and enjoy the world!"

See images of 'Stalking-horse'

Etymology of 'Stalking-horse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Stalking-horse" Quotes from Famous Books

... keeping the Spaniards out. When men who looked upon the Indians as without reason, and captured them for slaves when it was possible, began to talk of liberty, it looks as if the 'sacred name of liberty' was used but as a stalking-horse — as greasy Testaments are used to swear upon in police-courts, when the witness, with his tongue in his cheek, raises his eyes to heaven, and then with fervency imprints a kiss upon ...

— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

Words linked to "Stalking-horse" : candidate, cover, campaigner, putoff, feigning, covert, pretense, concealment, pretext, dissembling, pretence, horse