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lead by the nose

verb

Etymology

The figurative senses are metaphorical extensions from the literal sense of leading a livestock animal by grabbing its nose or nose ring (with the latter hooked to a lead) or by pushing its nose into feed or water to encourage it to eat or drink.

Definitions

  1. To cause to follow blindly.

    • let him choose well his referendaries , for else he may be led by the nose
    • Because he was outorganized, Hutchinson cries foul. Sorry, but I simply cannot accept his view that Alliance members are mindless lackeys lead by the nose by the "leadership."

  2. To lead by example and painstaking explanation, as one might do for remedial teaching.

    • We had to lead some users by the nose because they couldn't understand even the simplest instructions.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for lead by the nose. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA