bear-baiting
noun
the former practice of setting dogs to fight a captive bear.
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bear-baiting
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bear baiting
bear baitingnounthe practice of placing food or other attractants to lure bears to a particular location so they can be hunted.
bear-baiting
1 American
[bair-bay-ting]
/ ˈbɛərˌbeɪ tɪŋ /
Or
bearbaiting
noun
bear baiting
2
American
[bair bay-ting]
/ ˈbɛər ˌbeɪ tɪŋ /
noun
Hunting.
bear-baiting
British
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bear-baiting
First recorded in 1580–90; bear 2, bait (in the sense “to set dogs upon for sport”), -ing 1 ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The agency determined then that bear-baiting was biologically unsound, potentially unsafe and “inconsistent with federal law authorizing sport hunting in national preserves in Alaska.”
From Reuters ● May 21, 2018
Environmental groups immediately assailed the proposal, saying bear-baiting and other hunting and trapping practices the measure would permit are inhumane and disruptive to the natural predator-prey dynamic in Alaska’s preserves.
From Reuters ● May 21, 2018
Maine voters will decide whether to ban bear-baiting and using dogs to hunt bears.
From New York Times ● Oct. 30, 2014
With bear-baiting now illegal, the plucking and basting of turkeys is one of the few public rituals of catharsis we have, in an age of $150m marketing campaigns and Happy Meal burger tie-ins.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 20, 2013
I would I had bestow'd that time in the tongues, that I have in fencing, dancing, and bear-baiting: O, had I but follow'd the arts!
From Twelfth Night or, What You Will by J P Kemble
A similar ban on bear baiting, enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration, was rescinded by the 2020 rule, the park service said.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 6, 2023
She was cited for bear baiting, a charge that is still pending.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 26, 2018
Greyhound racing in Australia's most populous state is set to go the way of bear baiting and cock fighting - a sport deemed by authorities simply too distasteful to continue.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2016
Ten U.S. states currently allow bear baiting, according to Humane Society data.
From Reuters ● May 27, 2014
It appears from the Corporation Books that the Mayor and Aldermen patronised every kind of sport—plays, cock fights, bear baiting, morris dancing.
From Rides on Railways by Samuel Sidney
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
