lead someone up the garden path
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To deceive or mislead someone
Literally: to guide someone through a garden
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
She smiled, and didn't care a bit then that when it came to leading Travis up the garden path, she was doing a little garden path trail - blazing herself.
The signs are not always immediately apparent or indicative, and can easily lead us up the garden path; we have to learn to recognize the various spots and blemishes, however small.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “lead someone up the garden path” mean?
To deceive or mislead someone Literally: to guide someone through a garden
Is “lead someone up the garden path” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.