Horsetrading

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Informal negotiating, especially when complex or clever in nature. idiomatic, uncountable

    "Next Wednesday, four women and 15 men on the Crown Nominations Commission will gather for two days of prayer and horsetrading to replace Rowan Williams as archbishop of Canterbury."

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of horsetrade form-of, gerund, participle, present

Example

More examples

"Next Wednesday, four women and 15 men on the Crown Nominations Commission will gather for two days of prayer and horsetrading to replace Rowan Williams as archbishop of Canterbury."

Etymology

From horse + trading.

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