How to Use red herring in a Sentence

red herring

noun

• The plot of the mystery was full of red herrings.
• The argument is a red herring. It actually has nothing to do with the issue.
• This last bit proved a red herring, but the first part is true.
  — Elana Scherr, Car and Driver, 11 June 2023
• It’s kind of a red herring at the beginning of the movie.
  — Chris Willman, Variety, 5 Dec. 2021
• That debate about the anthem and the flag is the reddest of red herrings.
  — USA TODAY, 31 Jan. 2018
• But at least a red herring is being dispatched back to the deep.
  — Holman W. Jenkins, WSJ, 12 Feb. 2019
• The film unleashes cascades of anger and grief, and proves in the process that a tree can be a red herring.
  — Joe Morgenstern, WSJ, 5 July 2018
• But Sussmann and the researchers called this a red herring.
  — Marshall Cohen, CNN, 16 Feb. 2022
• Her Easter eggs were, in fact, a red herring all along.
  — Stephanie McNeal, Glamour, 5 Feb. 2024
• And the distinctly ’70s vibe of her outfit on the posters was no red herring.
  — Liam Hess, Vogue, 4 Mar. 2021
• Perhaps, the Deacon is just one of the good guys, a red herring to keep us guessing.
  — Shannon Carlin, refinery29.com, 3 May 2021
• The facts: Trump’s focus on a DNC server may or may not be a red herring.
  — Richard Lardner, The Seattle Times, 17 July 2018
• To make life even harder, the game throws red herrings into the mix: some words could be part of two groups.
  — Barry Collins, Forbes, 13 Sep. 2024
• The cost of the promising new weight-loss drugs is perhaps something of a red herring on her part.
  — Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 23 June 2023
• With countless red herrings and brain-teasing clues, we were gripped from the start.
  — Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Apr. 2023
• Later clues are often used as red herrings to throw the judges off.
  — Ariana Brockington, refinery29.com, 12 Feb. 2020
• The same can be said of her pictures, where specificity is a bit of a red herring.
  — Mark Holgate, Vogue, 16 Feb. 2024
• In that sense, the issue of whether Washington played a direct role in the coup is a red herring.
  — Peter Kornbluh, Foreign Affairs, 18 Aug. 2014
• But there are compelling reasons to think that line could be a red herring.
  — Eliana Dockterman, Time, 14 Oct. 2022
• Who killed Bryce Walker: Not falling for the red herrings with Clay!
  — Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 23 Aug. 2019
• Then again, the emotions of its subject may be something of a red herring when all is said and done.
  — David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 9 Oct. 2024
• The preceding singles have turned out to be slight red herrings in the build-up to release.
  — Steven J. Horowitz, Variety, 13 Oct. 2023
• In fact, the very concept of closure and the chasing of closure is something of a red herring.
  — Amy Dickinson, chicagotribune.com, 24 Sep. 2021
• This is where the ransomware red herring enters stage left.
  — Davey Winder, Forbes, 3 July 2021
• But then there’s a second mystery, concealed by a few red herrings in the first two sections of the film.
  — Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic, 5 July 2018
• The book’s avowed project, the man judging his past selves, turns out to be a red herring, a very Murnanian joke.
  — Merve Emre, The New Yorker, 25 July 2022
• Is that creepy stalker staring from across the courtyard a red herring?
  — Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, 2 Feb. 2022
• Yet renewable gas appears to be a red herring at this point in time.
  — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 8 Aug. 2019
• The second is that Jack is a red herring or a patsy, and that Eleanor is the primary villain of the season.
  — Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 8 Dec. 2021
• Yellowjackets‘ showrunners have also hinted that eating each other might not even be the worst of what happens in the wilderness, suggesting that the cold open could be a red herring for some yet unknown evil.
  — Megan McCluskey, TIME, 2 Oct. 2024

Last Updated: 13 Dec 2024