horse trading
- noun
- /hɔrs ˈtreɪdɪŋ/
:
intercambio de caballos
- The fair was known for its lively horse trading among local farmers.
Examples
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His grandfather once made a living through honest horse trading in the countryside.
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The horse trading at the market was intense.
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Old stories of horse trading reveal the importance of good negotiation skills.
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I enjoy horse trading with local farmers.
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The two companies engaged in horse trading to negotiate their merger agreement.
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After hours of horse trading, the politicians finally reached a compromise on the budget.
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The deal involved a lot of horse trading, with both sides making concessions to close the agreement.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Buying, selling, or exchanging goods and services between businesses and people
479
2.7
Buying and selling things like stocks or currencies to make money
A swap of horses between people who bargain for the best deal
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 originally described the real activity of buying, selling and swapping horses, where traders checked the animals and made clever offers. So the phrase can also simply mean 'exchanging horses' or the skillful bargaining that goes with that work.