Thu, 20 Nov 2025 07:30:05 EST
Canard
The English noun canard derives from the French noun canard, which means duck or hoax. The sense of hoax derives from the 16th-century French expression vendre des canards à moitié, which means selling ducks by the half. The phrase decribed cheating. The original context of the expression has been lost. English speakers adopted canard in the sense of hoax in the mid 19th century.