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• bear-baiting
  bear-baiting

  noun

  the former practice of setting dogs to fight a captive bear.
• bear baiting
  bear baiting

  noun

  the 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

1. the former practice of setting dogs to fight a captive bear.

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bear baiting ² American  

[bair bay-ting] / ˈbɛər ˌbeɪ tɪŋ /

noun

Hunting.

1. the practice of placing food or other attractants to lure bears to a particular location so they can be hunted.

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bear-baiting British  

noun

1. (formerly) an entertainment in which dogs attacked and enraged a chained bear

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Other Word Forms

• bear-baiter
  noun

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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. )

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bear-baiting bear baiting

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

There is a tradition that in the days of old the Bible was removed from the Parish Church of Ecclesfield and pawned by the churchwardens to provide the means of a bear-baiting.

From England in the Days of Old by William Andrews

A similar ban on bear baiting, enacted in 2015 during the Obama administration, was rescinded by the 2020 rule, the park service said.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 mattered little whether it was a mask, a miracle play, a church procession or a royal progress, a cock fight or a bear baiting.

From Women of England by Bartlett Burleigh James

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