smokescreen

• smoke screen
• smoke-screen

From smoke +‎ screen.

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smokescreen (plural smokescreens)

1. Smoke used as a disguise, mask or cover, as of troops in battle.
   • 1951, Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny‎, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Chapter 25, Part 5, p. 284:

     Ensign Whitely began to tell of the surprise encounter of Admiral Sprague’s escort-carrier force with the main battle line of the Japanese Navy off Samar, in a chaos of rain squalls and smoke screens.

   • 1959 September, “Talking of Trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 401, photo caption:

     C.I.E. Class "D14" 4-4-0 No. 89 covers its tracks with a magnificent smokescreen as it pulls out of Dun Laoghaire with the 9.0 a.m. boat train for Dublin.

2. (figuratively) Anything used metaphorically to conceal or distract.

   All that talk is just a smokescreen to disguise the fact that he has nothing to say.

   • 1968, Desmond Bagley, chapter 8, in The Vivero Letter‎, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, page 163:

     It was all very plausible and, as he poured out his smokescreen of words, I became fidgety for fear Fallon would be too direct with him.

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