Talk:trail

Tea room discussion
Is ther a sense for trail meaning to use as bait or offer as bait? (Might be a primarily british use.) RJFJR 22:42, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * could this be to drag something odoriferous (like a red herring!) to train or mislead a scent-following hunting animal? DCDuring TALK 23:03, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's the cite: Charles Stross, The Atrocity Archives (It's a spy/horror novel, the laundry is a nickname for a secret agency. I checked: the author is British):
 * "It's you they're after. As long as you're here in a laundry safe house they can't get to you.  But if we trail you in front of them, ..., we might be able to draw them out."


 * It seems like a figurative extension of the second sense of trail, more specifically the sense I suggested above (Owww! [pulled muscle patting myself on the back]). I would definitely put the citation on the citation page. I don't think the usage is particularly UK, but the UK has reputedly had better spies-on-the-ground than the US. The question is whether it would be better to have:
 * a figurative sense of "trail" which would be closer to the use above, but not include purpose
 * an extension of sense 2 incorporating purpose, but remaining concrete, physical about the "trail".
 * a sense specific to the usage illustrated.
 * more than one of the above.
 * I think I prefer having both 1 and 2, but not 3. DCDuring TALK 19:41, 26 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I would gloss this as dangle, which is somewhat different from what we have at sense 2 currently (though the senses are certainly related). Supporting cites for something like this:, , .  Seems likely to be derived from the angling sense, in which one trails a lure behind a boat.  -- Visviva 15:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Missing definition(s)
Are we missing two meanings... --Dmol (talk) 20:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * the meaning when used such as "the campaign trail". It's not really covered by any of the meanings.
 * tourist trail, as in a defined scenic route, but it is not mentioned here.

RFV discussion: May 2021
Rfv-sense: To flatten (grass, etc.) by walking through it; to tread down. There's supposedly a Longfellow quote there, but I couldn't find it (admittedly only using level 7 searching) Indian subcontinent (talk) 08:38, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure it is what was intended, but I have cited a sense of trail that was not there which seems to be to form a trail on (by going over). Kiwima (talk) 01:43, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

RFV-resolved Kiwima (talk) 23:30, 24 May 2021 (UTC)