garden-path

[ gahr-dn-path, -pahth ]

adjective

1. noting or pertaining to a sentence that is easily parsed incorrectly because its beginning suggests it has an interpretation that it clearly does not have.

Example Sentences

“When placed carefully,” Michael Gordon, a garden designer in Peterborough, New Hampshire, told Procter, the vessels “bring a feeling of both surprise and serenity to the journey down a garden path.”

From Seattle Times

When she saw a union representative walking solemnly up the garden path, she knew the worst had happened.

From BBC

A grenade lay on a garden path.

From BBC

I love being hoodwinked, led up the garden path, dazzled by red herrings and then awed into submission by an ingenious finale.

From Los Angeles Times

Reflecting on his efforts to decode potato spindle tuber disease, he wryly told the New York Times, “we went up the garden path many times.”

From Washington Post