smoke screen

1. 1.

   (military) screen consisting of a cloud of smoke that obscures movements

   Synonymssmokescreen

   Broaderscreen

   military

2. 2.

   an action intended to conceal or confuse or obscure

   “requesting new powers of surveillance is just a smokescreen to hide their failures”

   Synonymssmokescreen

   Broaderconcealment

Questions about smoke screen

What does smoke screen mean?

smoke screen means "(military) screen consisting of a cloud of smoke that obscures movements". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for smoke screen?

Close synonyms include smokescreen, smokescreen. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is smoke screen a common word?

smoke screen is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.