horse trading
3
5.2
- noun
- Informal
:
negociación dura
- If the price of those Republican votes is to scrap proposed EPA regulation of fracking, then expect to see some political horse-trading.
- political horse trading
- a lot of horse trading
- a kind of horse trading
Examples
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Perhaps this is the area where the focus of the hard bargaining and horse trading in the negotiations will be, but that's just a guess.
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And the horse trading log rolling that goes on with earmarks tends to to bloat the entire government.
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The list includes two long-running budget items that have become a popular perennial target of political horse trading.
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All this involves a lot of horse trading and bribery, and again, a lot of it is pretty seamy.
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The first step towards that would be to stop the lobbying industry, which essentially is a legal form of horse-trading.
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In the end, Garvees and BABS will be throwaways in the horse trading.
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It was horse trading at its worst, but didn't affect equal marginal costs.
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The Island President captures Nasheed's first year in office, culminating in his trip to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit, where the film provides a rare glimpse of the political horse-trading that goes on at such a top-level global assembly.
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After several rounds of negotiations, the two companies engaged in serious horse trading to finalize the merger.
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The politicians are involved in horse trading to secure votes for the budget proposal.
Synonyms
859
3.5
A discussion to reach an agreement, often in business or politics
363
2.5
An agreement where each side gives up something to reach a solution
6
3.4
A discussion about the price of something, often in a market, to reach an agreement
3
2.9
Talking and agreeing about a deal to get a better price or conditions
1
4.1
The activity of negotiating and arranging agreements in business or politics
Surface Forms
Morphology
horse + trade
A learner who knows 'horse' and 'trade' can easily infer the literal activity of exchanging horses, so part of the meaning is compositional. However, the common figurative sense—shrewd bargaining or political negotiation—is a metaphorical extension (metonymic shift) that is not fully predictable from the constituents and may require prior exposure, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The noun horse trading comes from the old practice of buying and swapping horses at fairs, where people argued about price and gave favors to close a deal. Because those market deals were full of tough give and take, people now use horse trading to mean 'hard bargaining' in politics and business.