horse trade
noun
a shrewdly conducted exchange, as of favors or objects, usually resulting from or accompanied by very close bargaining.
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horse trade
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horse-trade
horse-tradeverb (used without object)to bargain or trade shrewdly.
horse trade
1 Americannoun
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a shrewdly conducted exchange, as of favors or objects, usually resulting from or accompanied by very close bargaining.
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an exchanging or trading of horses.
horse-trade
2
American
[hawrs-trayd]
/ ˈhɔrsˌtreɪd /
verb (used without object)
horse-traded,
horse-trading
Etymology
Origin of horse trade1
An Americanism dating back to 1840–50
Origin of horse-trade2
An Americanism dating back to 1820–30
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:
“A Rocky Mountain trade chain had carried horses to the Northwestern Plains by the 1730s. … The horse trade ignited a technological revolution that reconfigured several Indigenous worlds within a generation.”
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 29, 2023
The researchers saw the robustness of the bones decline in the early 16th century, which would coincide with a decline in the British horse trade.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 14, 2022
Some of the most heavily fished species are classified as threatened with extinction, but the sea horse trade, like everything else I’d seen in this market, is legal.
From Slate ● Nov. 9, 2018
The horse trade has its ups and downs – as I write this, it’s down, the worst in my lifetime.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 8, 2018
I don’t care to make any horse trade now.’
From The Land of the Kangaroo Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent by Thomas Wallace Knox
But he offered himself as a rising young protégé, and they taught him how to pass and block legislation, stage filibusters, build coalitions and horse-trade behind the scenes.
From New York Times ● Apr. 23, 2022
Illustrating the horse-trade underway, a board presentation mentioned that $260 million will “be reimbursed to Sound Transit” as credits for transit to use state right of way, and for fish passage improvements.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
All were Democratic presidents who knew how to wheedle, bargain, glad-hand, joke, rib and horse-trade.
From US News ● Aug. 8, 2016
He could wear you down with logic and argument, he could horse-trade and he could flatter.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 10, 2014
It was a suit between two farmers who had had a disagreement over a horse-trade.
From The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln A Narrative And Descriptive Biography With Pen-Pictures And Personal Recollections By Those Who Knew Him by Francis F. (Francis Fisher) Browne
He stopped his tour, tracked down the performer, horse-traded one of his kites for a glider, and took it back to the United States.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 13, 2019
Others horse-traded with friends who have HBO: I’ll cook dinner if I can watch at your place.
From New York Times ● Apr. 13, 2010
She also defended the lack of detail on who might be in Burnham's cabinet, saying he was not "beholden" to anyone - with no need for horse-trading or deals.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026
It didn’t feel like there was horse-trading here.
From Slate ● Feb. 20, 2026
With the two sides bogged down in horse-trading on tariffs and critical minerals, structural matters have been entirely set aside, Cutler added.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025
The horse-trading vote feels more like the norm, which is interesting enough.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2024
Here on Saturdays the people had come together during half a century for sport and horse-trading and to talk politics.
From The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox
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.
