garden-path

American  

[gahr-dn-path, -pahth] / ˈgɑr dnˌpæθ, -ˌpɑθ /

adjective

1. noting or pertaining to a sentence that is easily parsed incorrectly because its beginning suggests it has an interpretation that it clearly does not have.

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

garden-path

In a minute or two I was running down the garden-path.

From My New Home by Brooke, L. Leslie (Leonard Leslie)

“A sensible-like lassie, that,” said the master to himself, looking at her with some such curiosity as he would have looked at a strange beetle in his garden-path, “that is wise like.”

From The Orphans of Glen Elder by Robertson, Margaret M. (Margaret Murray)

He turns involuntarily into the garden-path where, but a short time since, he had soothed her agitation and dried her tears.

From 'O Thou, My Austria!' by Schubin, Ossip

Sir Penthony lowers his eyes and shifts his aggressive position; Lowry, with bent head, and without another word, walks away from her down the garden-path out of the gate, and disappears—for years.

From Molly Bawn by Hamilton, Margaret Wolfe

The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun; It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path.

From American Poetry, 1922 A Miscellany by Various