red herring

plural red herrings

1. A herring that is cured in smoke and brine strong enough to turn the flesh red; a type of kipper.

   Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before.

   1660 March 8 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “February 28th, 1659–1660”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume I, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893, →OCLC, page 74

   1 more example

   ‘Mamma,’ said Rosamond, ‘when Fred comes down I wish you would not let him have red herrings. I cannot bear the smell of them all over the house at this hour of the morning.’

   1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 11, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book I, page 170

2. figurativelyA clue, information, argument, etc. that is or is intended to be misleading, diverting attention from the real answer or issue.

   Caroline visibly wavered for a second or two, much as a roulette ball might coyly hover between two numbers. Then she declined the tempting red herring.

   1926, Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

   3 more examples

   By its thirtieth episode, the show [Twin Peaks] had degenerated into tics and shticks and mannerisms and red herrings, and part of the explanation for this was that [David] Lynch was trying to divert our attention from the fact that he really had no idea how to wrap the central murder case up.

   1997, David Foster Wallace, “David Lynch keeps his head”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group

   I will, of course, turn my analytical talents to bear on the identity of the imitation Hathor, but in my opinion she is only a red herring – a nuisance, a distraction.

   2012 March 1, Elizabeth Peters, Children of the Storm (Amelia Peabody), Hachette UK, →ISBN, →OCLC

   Colombia is a red herring, however. The songs that became Madame X actually came together during Madonna’s two years in Portugal, where she decamped in 2017 when her son David enrolled in Benfica’s football academy.

   2019 June 8, Kitty Empire, “Madonna: Madame X review – a splendidly bizarre return to form”, in The Guardian, London

   Synonyms: decoy

3. businessA red herring prospectus.
4. archaicslangA soldier.

   “Devil a bit, Ma’am,” said the Major. “We couldn’t afford it. Unless the world was peopled with J.B.’s—tough and blunt old Joes, Ma’am, plain red herrings with hard roes, Sir—we couldn’t afford it. It wouldn’t do.”

   1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 208