trial balloon

To many, this game is a trial balloon to that end.

The proposals are more a trial balloon than anything else.

Seems to me you've been floating trial balloons for quite a while.

We send up trial balloons all the time, feeling each other out on a justice's position.

But this was one trial balloon that, by all appearances, never quite left the ground.

"Your father has floated a trial balloon," he said at last.

"It was a trial balloon the two of them had worked out, to see how they'd get along.

Then he called the current British compromise efforts a "trial balloon."

"So you were floating a trial balloon to the other justices."

There is no way to distinguish a regular test question from a trial balloon.

A. Seldom do we spend time sending up trial balloons.

"Anyone who wants to run is floating a trial balloon.

Was the report only a trial balloon to float by Arab capitals?

Into this large area of uncertainty, companies are launching products like trial balloons.

Like most similar reunion films, this production was considered a trial balloon for a possible new series.

A trial balloon is information sent out to the media in order to observe the reaction of an audience.

The early phase of the cash dance has yielded a few trial balloons.

We suggested he initiate the censorship issue as a trial balloon, to see if it would take hold.

Others said it may be a genuine trial balloon.

His comments, I think, are a trial balloon to see if he can draw in other investors besides himself.

Another similar metaphor is that of a trial balloon.

It was not a trial balloon, one official insisted.

And I have read articles, which were probably trial balloons, suggesting that 35 percent of income was appropriate.

"Maybe you should send up a trial balloon like those other fellows," Bud suggested.