Euphemism
A mild or indirect substitute for a word considered harsh, taboo, or unwelcome.
A euphemism is a soft, indirect, or evasive substitute for a word or phrase considered too blunt for the occasion. 'Passed away' for died, 'let go' for fired, 'collateral damage' for civilians killed — each euphemism trades precision for tact, or, less charitably, for evasion. The word comes from the Greek 'eu-phemos', meaning 'good-speaking'.
In personal life, euphemism serves genuine social functions: it cushions grief, protects the listener, and keeps conversation possible in difficult moments. In institutional life it often does the opposite work, concealing what is happening in a language so bland that the moral weight of the underlying fact is smuggled out of the sentence. George Orwell's 'Politics and the English Language' (1946) is the classic critique of institutional euphemism, and its lessons have not aged.
In quotation, watch for the euphemism that has been quietly upgraded into a technical term. When 'downsizing' replaces 'firing people' in a memoir, the memoirist has done more than choose a word; they have edited a moral fact. A careful reader restores the plain word before evaluating the sentence.
“Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”
Keep reading the glossary
The opposite of euphemism — a deliberately harsh or negative substitute for a neutral word.
A figure of speech that deliberately says less than the situation warrants, for emphasis, irony, or dry humour.
A phrase or quote so overused that it has lost most of its force.
A short, vivid extract from a longer speech, designed to be repeated by news media.