canard

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“
Brown canard, the better chance of its being forgotten. "

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun An unfounded or false, deliberately misleading story.
  2. noun A short winglike control surface projecting from the fuselage of an aircraft, such as a space shuttle, mounted forward of the main wing and serving as a horizontal stabilizer.
  3. noun An aircraft whose horizontal stabilizing surfaces are forward of the main wing.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • As if their allusion to anti-abortion rights of doctors being in jeopardy wasn't a big enough canard, a woman in England wants them to pay for $70k worth of experimental chemo for her boob cancer. —  The Nation: Top Stories
  • Its a classic media trick to pass off a canard in the headliners when the facts to back up the canard are either or non existent. —  Shveta Chhatra - Offstumped site for the New Big Tent
  • There are many points that disprove the canard, and default argument of some anti-Israel activists, that casts Israel's presence in the territories as the root of the Arab-Israel conflict and the cause of Palestinian violence. —  CAMERA Snapshots
  • This is a canard -- much as every justification that has been offered to support it. —  BlueOregon
  • 'Tarzan' hates people using his nickname and repeating the mace swinging canard, all the more reason of course for its repetition over the years by all and sundry. —  Harry's Place
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

fonctionnera ·  bete ·  flamme ·  fricandeau ·  lanterne ·  chameaux ·  servent ·  inconsistence ·  remet ·  soupe ·  menthe ·  appareil
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. French, duck, canard, probably from the phrase vendre un canard à moitié, to sell half a duck, to swindle, from Old French quanart, duck, from caner, to cackle, of imitative origin.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from French canard, a hoax, a broadside, a quack, a particular use of canard, masculine or feminine, a duck, properly only masculine, a drake, from cane, feminine, a duck (cf. Middle Latin canardus, a kind of boat). Origin unknown; supposed by some to be connected with Middle Low German Low German kane (later G. kahn) = Dutch kaan, a boat. The connection of the sense ‘a hoax, cheat’ with the orig. sense ‘a duck’ is prob. to be explained from the old phrase vendeur de canard à moitié, a cozener, guller, liar, literally one who half-sells a duck, that is (apparently), pretends to sell, and cheats in the operation; an expression prob. due to some local incident. In def. 2, cf. Parisian F. canard, a newspaper, canardier, a journalist.
  2. French canarder, < canard, duck, false report: see canard, n.
 

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/kæˈnɑrd/
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