- : the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant; also : the expression so substituted
Example Sentence:
Aunt Helen would never say that someone had died; she preferred to communicate the unpleasant news with euphemisms like passed on.Did you know?
Euphemism derives from the Greek word euphēmos, which means auspicious or sounding good.The first part of euphēmos is the Greek prefix eu-, meaning well.
The second part is phēmē, a Greek word for speech that is itself a derivative of the verb phanai, meaning to speak.
Among the numerous linguistic cousins of euphemism on the eu- side of the family are eulogy, euphoria, and euthanasia; on the phanai side, its kin include prophet and aphasia (loss of the power to understand words).