as in metaphor
a mild or pleasant word group of words that is used instead of one that is unpleasant or offensive
using "eliminate" as a euphemism for "kill" She spoke in euphemisms when recounting the expletive-laden tirade.
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of euphemism
That euphemism for prostitution represents a change in cultural standards, some would say the degradation of traditional ethics about women and men and social roles.
—
Armond White, National Review, 5 Mar. 2025
The phrase is typically a euphemism for leaving discreetly, often to use the restroom.
—Russel Honoré, Newsweek, 5 Mar. 2025
After sixteen months of watching a genocide happen in real time—with more-or-less total support from Western governments, despite the euphemisms and justifications skillfully woven by headlines and political speeches—the contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.
—Hazlitt, 27 Feb. 2025
Finally, liquid bat guano and liquid earthworm castings (guano and castings are euphemisms for excrement) are also utilized for foliar fertilization.
—Joshua Siskin, Orange County Register, 14 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for euphemism
Armond White, National Review, 5 Mar. 2025
The phrase is typically a euphemism for leaving discreetly, often to use the restroom.
—Russel Honoré, Newsweek, 5 Mar. 2025
After sixteen months of watching a genocide happen in real time—with more-or-less total support from Western governments, despite the euphemisms and justifications skillfully woven by headlines and political speeches—the contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.
—Hazlitt, 27 Feb. 2025
Finally, liquid bat guano and liquid earthworm castings (guano and castings are euphemisms for excrement) are also utilized for foliar fertilization.
—Joshua Siskin, Orange County Register, 14 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for euphemism
Recent Examples of Synonyms for euphemism
Noun
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That last part is an apt metaphor for the city, which is on its sixth or 20th reinvention of itself, the days in which the Big Three auto companies created more than 470,000 jobs in the city and state of Michigan in the late ’70s are long gone.—
David Aldridge,
New York Times,
29 Apr. 2025
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While Nathan Fielder can still pay off his absurdly meticulous re-creation of a Houston airport terminal and the dozens of mimicked airline crew members and Panda Express workers inside it, the captain/co-pilot dynamic is proving to be an endlessly elastic metaphor.—
Scott Tobias,
Vulture,
28 Apr. 2025
Noun
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In an unusual twist in the governor’s race, a wealthy Democratic businessman is suing former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa over the use of a common phrase in political campaigns.—
Seema Mehta,
Los Angeles Times,
1 May 2025
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The phrase stunned both the victim’s family and the magistrates.—
Isabella Wandermurem,
Time,
1 May 2025
Noun
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So what you're left with in terms of handicapping the race for pope is the endless guess-work by the Vatican experts at Rome's top media outlets.—
Marco della Cava,
USA Today,
22 Apr. 2025
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Reelected in November to a third term, Murphy is in his third new phase as a senator — the first 10 years building a gun control movement, the last two as a broker of bipartisan deals on gun safety and border control.—
Mark Pazniokas,
Hartford Courant,
21 Apr. 2025
Noun
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Even names, idioms, and cultural references are sometimes exoticized or reduced to caricatures, reinforcing narrow or misleading representations.—
Diana Spehar,
Forbes.com,
1 May 2025
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At that time, writers like Ashbery and Frank O’Hara were helping to establish a new idiom in American poetry, something serious without self-seriousness: the new poetry was open to the city’s rhythms, irreverent but tender—and clearly, if not openly, gay.—
David S. Wallace,
The New Yorker,
19 Mar. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Euphemism.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/euphemism. Accessed 4 May. 2025.
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