(n.) A figure in which a harts or indelicate word or expression is softened; a way of describing an offensive thing by an inoffensive expression; a mild name for something disagreeable.
Example Sentences:
(1) 9.41pm BST Dodgers 0 - Cardinals 0, bottom of the 2nd The "demeaning euphemism for overweight" Matt Adams lines out to Adrian Gonzalez for the second out of the inning.
(2) General Bantz Craddock, who instituted the restraint chair and twice-daily intubation in 2006 , said that he designed it to make hunger-striking less " convenient " – a not terribly subtle euphemism for more painful – and that "pretty soon [after these practices were introduced]…they decided it wasn’t worth it."
(3) To avoid discussing the hunger strike and its rationale, they introduced a euphemism when asked about it: “long-term non-religious fasting”.
(4) I liked working there in the "people department" (a new euphemism for the women's section in the age of feminism), since it offered handy distractions from the horror of the blank page.
(5) Craving boldness is too often a euphemism for wishing Labour's predicament were something other than what it is; that there was a way to promise immediate improvement in everyone's lives without giving them money.
(6) She's both a "certain type of woman" (divorced single mothers must only be referred to in euphemism) and an object of desire.
(7) On Tuesday Khamenei used the expression "heroic leniency", which is being interpreted as a euphemism for a softer stance on foreign policy.
(8) And they gave us the word “euphemism” in the first place – “to use a favourable word in place of an inauspicious one”.
(9) In fact, the word 'torture' does not appear anywhere, nor even the preferred diplomatic euphemism, 'ill-treatment'.
(10) There were euphemisms (“an incident”, “an inappropriate action on my part”); there were vague and reassuring references to the woman (“she has accepted my apology”); and there were mind-your-own-business obfuscations (“a deeply personal business”).
(11) Political rhetoric now as in Orwell's day exploits not only euphemism ("austerity") but dysphemism ("skivers") and loaded metaphor ("fiscal cliff"): in our time, weaponised soundbites are deliberately engineered to smuggle the greatest amount of persuasion into the smallest space, to be virally replicated on rolling news.
(12) There is a serious risk that, sooner rather than later, “self-employment” will simply be a euphemism for regular work in which the employee is unprotected by minimum-wage legislation or any other workplace entitlements.
(13) The NSC will also be put in charge of a £1.3bn prosperity fund that will focus on issues like “improving the business climate” – a term too often used as a euphemism for the promotion of ideologically-driven policies like the privatisation of public services .
(14) Labelling Matters , a campaign set up by Compassion in World Farming and the RSPCA among others, is calling for labels that discard euphemisms in favour, for instance, of “intensive indoor” for pork from pigs that never go outside and “permanently housed” for dairy cows that never graze in fields.
(15) According to state media, Ji Jianye is being investigated for "severe violations of discipline and law" – a euphemism for embezzlement, bribery and other official abuses.
(16) But what this kind of legislation would do is promote “information-sharing” – a euphemism for cutting a giant hole in our privacy laws that allow companies like Sony or 20th Century Fox (or Google or Facebook) to hand over all sorts of our personal information to the government with no legal process whatsoever.
(17) Work was a widely used euphemism for killing during the genocide.
(18) "Dressing for pleasure" and "fun fashion" get a bad rap, especially for women in their middle age, as it is generally assumed that this is a euphemism for women dressing like clowns and not realising that, at their age (huff, huff), they should be wearing beige cashmere.
(19) Records of military and congressional investigations into the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre illustrate that "scalping" and other terms were euphemisms for Colorado Volunteers mutilating Cheyenne people and wearing and displaying genitalia, fetuses, and other "battle trophies".
(20) Apart from using the words "organic" as a euphemism for "traditional", his ideas seem to have matured little in the 25 years.
Euphemistic
Definition:
(a.) Alt. of Euphemistical
Example Sentences:
(1) But these qualities in Bush were all too apparent in last night's interview, particularly in the way he would dance away from any acknowledgement of culpability by saying that he could "understand why people feel that way", whether it be about what he euphemistically called a "lack of a crisp response" to Hurricaine Katrina, or anger at the bank bailouts.
(2) Then there’s that thing euphemistically called ‘shrinkage’ – when money goes missing.
(3) They prop up and artificially inflate profit margins (or “surpluses” as they are euphemistically called in the public sector).
(4) What similarities exist concern the two countries’ euphemistic description of their involvement: Russia is claiming an operation against the Islamic State while actually attacking enemies of client Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US is bombing Isis in Syria while treating the country as peripheral to a central conflict in neighboring Iraq.
(5) Chicken wing This euphemistically named move is classified broadly by the National Rugby League as dangerous contact in which players try to bend or twist limbs in such a way that causes an “unacceptable risk of injury”.
(6) Cut taxes at the top and deregulate business (euphemistically called "cutting red tape") so that the "wealth creators" have greater incentives to invest and generate growth; and make hiring and firing easier.
(7) There was little "eve-teasing" – as sexual harrassment is often euphemistically called in India – because fathers would unite to ensure anyone troubling their daughters stopped.
(8) Toru Hashimoto, the young, brash mayor of Osaka who is also co-leader of an emerging conservative political party, said on Monday there was no clear evidence that the Japanese military coerced women to become what are euphemistically called "comfort women".
(9) However, that assumption is, as the report states euphemistically, "high compared with recent history".
(10) But perhaps once we are lulled into an imaginative world where a "baby" lamb or the "baby" queen scallop can be "resting" (in the scallop's case, resting itself on another baby, this time a "baby gem", since vegetables too – baby carrots, baby greens – can share in the general babyhood of all nice things, and participate in tottering towers of babies all stacked up for our gastric enjoyment), we are cocooned in such a euphemistic dream that the incipient act of putting these "baby" organisms into our mouths doesn't register as the horrific dissonance it otherwise might.
(11) "You are being euphemistic when you say lack of accountability.
(12) The two instances prompt the question: who does Britain befriend in its quest for what are euphemistically called “trade” and “investment”?
(13) One libel settlement, or even a robust defence of a hopeless case, would need several hundred subscribers to traverse your paywall or euphemistic "value gate" for a year before it is paid for.
(14) On a base level, when we buy a £10 pair of trousers, surely we know what we are buying into: cheap clothes, sometimes euphemistically called "affordable fashion" or "fast fashion" are almost always produced on the backs of exploitation, many of them women, and sometimes children.
(15) The ministry of home affairs has announced that legislation on sexual harassment – known euphemistically in India as "eve-teasing" – will be tightened.
(16) "We did not realise our power, but instead relied on donors, that we euphemistically called partners."
(17) She has arrived lugging a gym bag, hair wet from what she describes as a "sleepover" at a friend's house, and she is not being euphemistic.
(18) The lack of safe public transport in Indian cities is one major factor with "eve teasing", as sexual harassment is euphemistically known, endemic on overcrowded buses.
(19) Thévenoud, who was appointed secretary of state for foreign trade in the Socialist government reshuffle at the end of August, was fired just nine days later after it was discovered he had what was euphemistically described as "problems of conformity with his taxes".
(20) When a manager has what is euphemistically described as a selection headache it is fascinating to wonder what the impulses are behind a key decision.