Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Trial Balloon |
Trial BalloonNoun1. A test of public opinion. 2. A balloon sent up to test air currents. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Experiment | Grope; feel one's way, grope for one's way; fumble, t_tonner, aller _ t_tons, put out a feeler, throw out a feeler; send up a trial balloon, send up a pilot balloon; see how the land lies, get the lay of the land, test the waters, feel out, sound out, take the pulse, see, check, check out, see how the wind blows; consult the barometer; feel the pulse; fish for, bob for; cast for, beat about for; angle, trawl, cast one's net, beat the bushes. |
Feeler; trial balloon, pilot balloon, messenger balloon; pilot engine; scout; straw to show the wind. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
For instance, a company might announce they are going to release a new computer program in a year, and then read the press coverage for hints on whether or not the product will have appeal in the marketplace. If the coverage is favourable the money will be spent on development, but if not the project can be cancelled before using up resources. A trial balloon is somewhat risky, if too many are "floated" the company risks becoming know as the company that cried wolf, and can find itself being ignored completely. In addition, the company can find that the product being planned is unworkable, leading to the phenonmenon of vaporware.
One concrete example was Boeing's announcement of several new airline designs in the wake of the Airbus A380 entering development. First they offered a similar-sized large aircraft, but with the A30 beating them to production by at least two years there was apparently little market left. They then announced that they had cancelled their large airliner planes and announced the Sonic Cruiser design, and found much the same reception. This led to the Boeing 7E7 Dreamliner as yet another offering looking for a market, one that appears to have found interesting customers.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Trial balloon."
| Language | Translations for "trial balloon"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||
Arabic | منطاد إختبار. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | balon-balonan (soap bubbles). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | ialtray alloonbay пробный шар (ballon d'essai, feeler, pilot balloon). (various references) halkın tepkisini ölçmek için duyurulan ön haber. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-b-i-l-l-l-n-o-o-r-t" | |
-3 letters: antilabor, baritonal. | |
-4 letters: ablation, abortion, antiroll, baronial, boltonia, brantail, linalool, lobation, notarial, oblation, rational, tornillo, trilobal. | |
-5 letters: airboat, alation, albinal, allobar, balloon, barilla, biotron, lanital, linalol, litoral, oration, orbital, ortolan, taborin, tollbar. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Translations: Modern 3. Anagrams 4. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
