This project has inquired into the contextual meanings of hidden curriculum as used in the literature via the method of linguistic analyses. Its findings indicate that this term has no single referent but conceptions of it abound. It is also noted that while there is no consensus among critics on an essential meaning of the concept of the hidden curriculum, boundaries of possibility are vaguely discernible. This study further suggests that the failure of researchers to unveil the hidden curriculum indicates that the concept is but a creation of the mind of educationists who exploit it to achieve their own political ends, whether the intention is to maintain the status quo or to launch an attack on educational practices. Consequently, it has been proposed that it is impractical if not impossible to dispense with the amorphous hidden curriculum concept, but that research in the relationship between the hidden curriculum and educational rhetoric is both essential and belated in the face of a changing society.