Meaning of coat-trailing | Babel Free

Definitions

A disingenuous act or arrangement intended to provoke a desired response.

UK, countable, uncountable

Examples

“The Peshawar agent will often be an ambitious man "in a hurry⟳," in which case he will push⟳ the forward⟳ policy, and amongst future Viceroys Aucklands, Lyttons, Lansdownes, and Elgins will be more frequent than Lawrences and Curzons, and then we shall have⟳ complications, coat-trailings, warlike movements, perhaps even wars, and they mean⟳, as was the case through the 'nineties, extravagance trans-Indus, and crippling retrenchments or tax enhancements cis-Indus.”

“It would still remain⟳ a perfectly good Bill without the Clause. Its presence in it is nothing but what I said earlier, namely, a typical example of coat-trailing.”

“I am not prepared to be involved or drawn into a controversy on the one hand with those who proposed to abolish the name⟳ in a coat-trailing political exercise or on the other hand with those who rose to that bait and opposed the decision to try⟳ to change⟳ the name⟳, equally for reasons of political opportunism and coat-trailing.”

“My own⟳ coat-trailing was totally ineffective, but the system of having an obvious road black, with 'cut-offs' behind and down side streets to catch⟳ those deliberately avoiding them proved useful.”

“It was an Abwehr tradition for each of its officers to recruit his own⟳ agents. British M.I.6, who were responsible for the planting, obviously failed to do their coat-trailing either in the right places or with the right Abwehr officers.”

CEFR level