Definition

A deliberately false or misleading story that somehow gains traction despite being completely untrue—basically fake news before we had a catchy term for it. In aviation, it also refers to an aircraft design with stabilizing wings in front of the main wing, because apparently one definition wasn't confusing enough. The food term refers to duck, but that's just French being French.

Example Usage

The politician dismissed the corruption allegations as a canard spread by opponents, though the evidence suggested otherwise.

Source: Wiktionary via Free Dictionary API

Related Terms

Advanced

rubber coyote

A corporate buzzword for a solution that sounds clever in PowerPoint but fails spectacularly in practice. Named after the brilliant strategy of using fake predator decoys to scare away geese—which works about as well as you'd expect. It's the business equivalent of thoughts and prayers: well-intentioned, completely ineffective, and beloved by middle management.

💼 Corporate / Business
Beginner

Roadmap

A strategic timeline showing planned features or initiatives, though calling it a 'map' suggests more certainty than usually exists. More accurately: a wishlist with dates.

💼 Corporate / Business
Beginner

cover your ass (CYA)

The art of documenting everything and copying fifteen people on emails to ensure someone else takes the blame when things go sideways. Self-preservation disguised as thoroughness.

💼 Corporate / Business
Intermediate

suitnami

The inevitable catastrophic meltdown that occurs when a well-dressed professional overindulges at happy hour and loses all semblance of corporate composure. A tidal wave of poor decisions wrapped in business attire, typically witnessed at open-bar weddings and firm holiday parties.

💼 Corporate / Business
Intermediate

governance

The elaborate system of rules, processes, and committees that organizations create to ensure accountability, which paradoxically often makes it impossible to figure out who's actually responsible for anything. Good governance means having enough oversight to prevent chaos; too much governance means spending six months getting approval to order new staplers. It's the corporate equivalent of checks and balances, except the checks never clear and nobody can balance the budget.

💼 Corporate / Business
Advanced

Gator in the Lake

Corporate email jargon for that completely irrelevant, company-wide message that somehow makes it to everyone's inbox, insulting the collective intelligence of all recipients. It's the digital equivalent of calling an all-hands meeting to announce someone found gum under a desk. Usually sent by someone who thinks their random observation deserves C-suite visibility.

💼 Corporate / Business

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wtwr

well that was random...