1 : a screen of smoke to hinder enemy observation of a military force, area, or activity. 2 : something designed to obscure, confuse, or mislead.
How do you use smokescreen in a sentence?
an action intended to conceal or confuse or obscure.
- He was accused of putting up a smokescreen to hide poor standards in schools.
- The Strasbourg smokescreen will be different.
- He was just firing a smokescreen of emotive words and phrases.
- The rumors were a smokescreen for their own illegal activities.
Where does the expression smokescreen come from?
smoke-screen (n.)
1915, as a form of military camouflage, from smoke (n. 1) + screen (n.); 1926 in the figurative sense. The association of smoke with "deception, deliberate obscurity" dates back to at least 1560s.
