hold with the hare and run with the hounds

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English

Pronunciation

  • Audio (AU)(file)

Verb

hold with the hare and run with the hounds (third-person singular simple present holds with the hare and runs with the hounds, present participle holding with the hare and running with the hounds, simple past held with the hare and ran with the hounds, past participle held with the hare and run with the hounds)

  1. (idiomatic, dated) To oppose an action or behavior and yet engage in the same action or behavior; to be a hypocrite.
    Well, if you ask me, Pastor Hawkins is trying to hold with the hare and run with the hounds by opposing casino gambling when his church operates a bingo game every Thursday night.
  2. (idiomatic, dated) To remain neutral by attempting to placate two factions or both sides of a controversy.
    Julianna needs to be careful if she keeps holding with the hare and running with the hounds; she might wind up making enemies of both labor and management.

Quotations

  • 1571, Arthur Golding, “Epistle Dedicatorie”, in The Psalmes of David and others. With M. John Calvins Commentaries‎:
    […] Laddes that canne holde with the Hare and hunt with the Hounde, and (as the Scripture termeth them) time servers and men pleasers.
  • 1678, John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come:
    He can throw stones with both hands--can hold with the hare and run with the hounds--carry fire in one hand and water in the other.
  • 1871, Mary Elizabeth Braddon., Belgravia:
    How happy is the man who knows really how to hold with the hare and run with the hounds! in other words, to be equally agreeable to both husband and wife.
  • 1874, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, An Earnest Warning on Lukewarmness‎:
    Thousands try to hold with the hare and run with the hounds, they are for God and Mammon, Christ and Belial, truth and error, and so are "neither hot nor cold."
  • 1967 March, Robert Brainard Pearsall, “The Vendible Values of Housman's Soldiery”, in PMLA, volume 82, number 1:
    Thus Housman's uniformed creations move crookedly; they run with the hare and run with the hounds, and their "meaning" is uncertain.
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