Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To speak of or refer to by means of a euphemism.
- intransitive verb To use euphemisms.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make euphemistic; express by a euphemism.
- To indulge in euphemism; speak euphemistically.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- verb To express by a euphemism, or in delicate language; to make use of euphemistic expressions.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb intransitive To utter one or more
euphemisms ; to speakeuphemistically . - verb transitive To
describe orrefer to by using one or more euphemisms.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb refer to something with a euphemism
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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He said that 15 to 20 percent of losses was what "everyone learned to live with in 1991 and 1992" and that aid workers even coined a term to euphemize the theft - "traditional distribution" - because even though the food was getting looted, it still ended up in local markets, having the ancillary effect of reducing overall food prices and making food more affordable for the poor.
NYT > Home Page By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN 2011
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He said that 15 to 20 percent of losses was what "everyone learned to live with in 1991 and 1992" and that aid workers even coined a term to euphemize the theft - "traditional distribution" - because even though the food was getting looted, it still ended up in local markets, having the ancillary effect of reducing overall food prices and making food more affordable for the poor.
NYT > Global Home By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN 2011
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In every case - personal, political, or business, we euphemize to take the edge off, and in doing so, we sacrifice clarity, we sacrifice truth, and worst of all, we avoid facing reality.
Students 2010
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If it be birds that ultimately euphemize human death and decomposition in Silas' hands, it's for no other reason than that our fear of death, a fear necessary to life, overrides even our fascination with the death of our own kind, the deaths of the animals nearest to us in the evolutionary chain, and so on down the line.
G. Roger Denson: Holocaust and Redemption in the Photography of Susan Silas G. Roger Denson 2011
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When we euphemize, we generalize, we profile, we stereotype, and we assume that all of "them" are one.
Leadership 2010
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Middle management will euphemize poor results, failures, screw-ups when talking to upper management so that they don't look bad, but then the leaders have incomplete (bad) information and the company can't make good decisions.
Leadership 2010
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If it be birds that ultimately euphemize human death and decomposition in Silas' hands, it's for no other reason than that our fear of death, a fear necessary to life, overrides even our fascination with the death of our own kind, the deaths of the animals nearest to us in the evolutionary chain, and so on down the line.
G. Roger Denson: Holocaust and Redemption in the Photography of Susan Silas G. Roger Denson 2011
-
Middle management will euphemize poor results, failures, screw-ups when talking to upper management so that they don't look bad, but then the leaders have incomplete (bad) information and the company can't make good decisions.
Students 2010
-
If it be birds that ultimately euphemize human death and decomposition in Silas' hands, it's for no other reason than that our fear of death, a fear necessary to life, overrides even our fascination with the death of our own kind, the deaths of the animals nearest to us in the evolutionary chain, and so on down the line.
G. Roger Denson: Holocaust and Redemption in the Photography of Susan Silas G. Roger Denson 2011
-
When we euphemize, we generalize, we profile, we stereotype, and we assume that all of "them" are one.
Students 2010
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