lead down the garden path

Save This Word!

Also, lead up the garden path. Deceive someone. For example, Bill had quite different ideas from Tom about their new investment strategy; he was leading him down the garden path. This expression presumably alludes to the garden path as an intentional detour. [Early 1900s] Also see lead on.

QUIZ

SHALL WE PLAY A "SHALL" VS. "SHOULD" CHALLENGE?

Should you take this quiz on “shall” versus “should”? It should prove to be a quick challenge!

Question 1 of 6

Which form is commonly used with other verbs to express intention?

shall

should

TAKE THE QUIZ TO FIND OUT

Words nearby lead down the garden path

lead by the nose, lead carbonate, lead chromate, lead colic, lead dioxide, lead down the garden path, leaded, leaden, lead encephalopathy, leader, leader block

How to use lead down the garden path in a sentence

We see detoxing as a path to transcendence, a symbol of modern urban virtue and self-transformation through abstinence.
How Taryn Toomey’s ‘The Class’ Became New York’s Latest Fitness Craze|Lizzie Crocker|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
France 24 is providing live, round-the-clock coverage of both scenes as they progress.
LIVE Coverage of the Paris Terror Attacks||January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Tend to your own garden, to quote the great sage of free speech, Voltaire, and invite people to follow your example.
How the PC Police Threaten Free Speech|Nick Gillespie|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Such is her burgeoning popularity Toomey is looking to employ more instructors to lead her highly personalized exercise classes.
How Taryn Toomey’s ‘The Class’ Became New York’s Latest Fitness Craze|Lizzie Crocker|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST

Clad in a blue, striped button-down, a silver watch adorning his left wrist, Huckabee beams on the cover.
Huckabee 2016: Bend Over and Take It Like a Prisoner!|Olivia Nuzzi|January 8, 2015|DAILY BEAST
It ended on a complaint that she was 'tired rather and spending my time at full length on a deck-chair in the garden.'
The Wave|Algernon Blackwood
The bride elect rushes up to him, and so they both step down to the foot-lights.
Physiology of The Opera|John H. Swaby (AKA "Scrici")
I take the Extream Bells, and set down the six Changes on them thus.
Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing|Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
His wife stood smiling and waving, the boys shouting, as he disappeared in the old rockaway down the sandy road.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories|Kate Chopin
So he bore down on the solemn declaration that she stood face to face with a prison term for perjury.
The Bondboy|George W. (George Washington) Ogden