Canard is a preposterous hoax. Canard means a duck in French. What is the connection between a hoax and a duck?

Egide Cornelissen-a Belgian journalist- reported an unusual experiment conducted by him in the early 19Th Century with 20 ducks.

He claimed that he roasted a duck and fed it to the remaining 19 ducks. The next day he roasted another duck and fed it to the remaining 18 ducks. This went of until one duck was left alive which had eaten all his 19 companions!

This story got wide publicity in Europe as well as America. Later the journalist admitted that he had never conducted such an experiment and the story was a product of his fertile imagination.

Since then word Canard itself denotes a large scale hoax.