"Euphemism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could scarcely help feeling that in a few seconds we were likely to be put out of action—polite euphemism!—before striking a blow. But the God of battles was with us, for the third shell, to our utter astonishment, not unmingled with relief, never came! The reason was soon apparent: a battery of horse-artillery was seen ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... nothing of that kind," I answered with a smile as I interpreted the euphemism; for "something unpleasant," in the case of a young and reasonably presentable medical man is ordinarily the equivalent of trouble with the female of his species. "It is nothing that concerns me personally at all," I continued; ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... treatment of "sthenic" acute diseases (meaning those accompanied by excitement and high fever), blood-letting, mercury given to the point of salivation, antimony, and opium, together with starvation (all included under the euphemism of "lowering measures"), were the means universally resorted to and reputed "sheet anchors." Some advance had been made from the times when disease had been looked upon as an entity to be exorcised, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... of our daughter's strange - er - departure?" asked Mr. Gilbert, eagerly scanning Kennedy's face and using a euphemism that would fall less harshly on his wife's ears ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... of that process. Belgium is unquestionably "neutralised," but no one supposes that the appearance in its waters and ports of ships of war is therefore prohibited. The fact is that the term "neutralisee" was employed in the Treaty of Paris as a euphemism, intended to make less unpalatable to Russia a restriction upon her sovereign rights which she took ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... epithet, title, cognomen, surname, cognomination, pseudonym, patronymic, metronymic, alias, penname, praenomen, sobriquet, nom de plume, nom de guerre, nickname, eponym, misnomer, euphemism, agnomen, allonym, anonym, autonym, appellative, byname, caconym, cryptonym, compellation, compellative, dionym, trionym, polyonym, diminutive; repute, fame, renown, reputation. Associated Words: nominal, nominally, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... his housekeeper—who was also his remote cousin. For "something happening" was a euphemism that meant only one ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the shape of a biography. For some weeks the man would come to Meredith's study and give him talkings. At the first talking Meredith would also make a sketch of the outside appearance of his subject. Here the resources of language far exceed those of colour. The happy euphemism of language permits a squint to be described as an ambidexterity of vision; it is even quite possible to omit an ill-regulated feature altogether. Suppose an artist paints a man without a nose—the defect sauterait aux yeux: it would be as plain as the nose not upon ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... a wall of the library at Weimar), and solicited her intervention with the Grand Duke, whose reign Schiller and Goethe made glorious. Frulein Jagemann was a prima donna and the Grand Duke's mistress. ("The companion of my leisure moments," he called her with quite a pretty euphemism.) In the former capacity she had given Goethe, the director, a great deal of trouble, and in the latter her influence had caused him many an annoyance. It was the dog that broke the camel's back of ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel |
