sugarcoat the pill
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Pronunciation edit
Audio (AU) (file)
Verb edit
sugarcoat the pill (third-person singular simple present sugarcoats the pill, present participle sugarcoating the pill, simple past and past participle sugarcoated the pill)
- (idiomatic) To make an unpleasant situation more pleasant.
- Synonyms: gild the pill, sweeten the pill
- 1930, Watson White, The Paris that is Paris, page 186:
- To sugarcoat the pill of payment the receiver of the tax was wont to refer to it disparagingly in the diminutive, calling it “la huchette,” “the little tax on a fish stall.”
- 2008, Robert Solomon, David Sherman, editors, The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 326:
- Philosophy supposes that the argument is merely flavored with such imported images to sugarcoat the pill of difficult thinking for those unused to the bitter remedy of rigorous thought.
- 2018 October 20, Zoe Wood, “Shopping malls' desperate decline comes to prime minister’s doorstep”, in The Guardian[1]:
- One middle-aged woman does not sugar-coat the pill, rating the experience “one out of 10” because “shops keep shutting”.