trial balloon
noun
Simple meaning
An idea, suggestion, or prospective action, product, etc., offered to an audience or group to test whether it generates acceptance or interest.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tryuhlbuhloonSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɹaɪəlbəˈlun
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
idiomaticfiguratively
An idea, suggestion, or prospective action, product, etc., offered to an audience or group in order to test whether it generates acceptance or interest.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An idea, suggestion, or prospective action, product, etc., offered to an audience or group in order to test whether it generates acceptance or interest.
Used this way, trial balloon is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.