First recorded in 1580–90; bear 2, bait (in the sense “to set dogs upon for sport”), -ing 1 ( def. )
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
They always remind me of what Macaulay said of the Puritans, who put down bear-baiting not because it was cruel to the bear, but because it amused the people.
From Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II by Downey, Edmund
A similar ban on bear baiting, enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration, was rescinded by the 2020 rule, the park service said.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
Proponents of the ban contend that bear baiting, in which hunters lure bears to a stand with stale donuts and other sweets, encourages bears to see humans as a source of food.
From Reuters ● May 27, 2014
Hunting, bear baiting, fireworks, tilting, Morris dances, a rustic marriage, a fight between Danes and English, curious aquatic sports,—all succeeded each other, interspersed with brilliant feasts.
From A History of English Prose Fiction by Tuckerman, Bayard
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.
