Horsetrade

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To negotiate informally, especially when bargaining or reciprocal concessions are included, frequently regarding politics. idiomatic

    "Nobody appeared to have told [Woodrow] Wilson that [William F.] McCombs had, in fact, already horsetraded the position to [Thomas R.] Marshall in exchange for Indiana's votes."

Example

More examples

"Nobody appeared to have told [Woodrow] Wilson that [William F.] McCombs had, in fact, already horsetraded the position to [Thomas R.] Marshall in exchange for Indiana's votes."

Etymology

From horse + trade.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.