"Euphemism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Spit. The former word is frequently used, even in laws and ordinances, as a euphemism for the latter. It not only means something entirely different, but to one with a Latin ear is far ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... Such ancient and innocent words as "bitch" and "bastard" disappeared from the American language; Bartlett tells us, indeed, in his "Dictionary of Americanisms,"[41] that even "bull" was softened to "male cow." This was the Golden Age of euphemism, as it was of euphuism; the worst inventions of the English mid-Victorians were adopted and improved. The word "woman" became a term of opprobrium, verging close upon downright libel; legs became the inimitable "limbs"; the ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... 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, titular, titulary, onomatology, patronomatology, onomasticon, orismology, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... the strain of feeding the 'travellers,' which is the country euphemism for bush unemployed, has come to be felt as an unwarranted tax upon the industry, and as a mischievous stimulus ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... phrases of Mr. Lyttelton's despatch, that they "cannot be expected to entertain the most cordial feelings towards the Government." In Ireland, also, is a "political system which admittedly has its difficulties," ironical euphemism for a system whose analogue in the Transvaal could have been used by the subject race, had they so willed, to bring civil government to a standstill, without the means of furnishing anything better, and which ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... a mile away from the scene of all these loathsome and degrading sights, sounds, and odors, you might have found fastidious and courtly gentlemen, and ladies all belaced and bejewelled, sentimentalising over their "aspic de foie gras," or their "cotelettes a la jardiniere," or some other euphemism for the dead flesh which could not, without pardonable breach of good breeding, be called by its plain true name in their presence. And when the poet reminded them of this truth, and spoke to them of the demoralisation to ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... necessary to the perfect pamphlet. There was not the political freedom; there was not the public; there was not the immediate object; there was not, last and most of all, the style. Political utterances under a more or less despotic, or, as the modern euphemism goes, 'personal' government, were almost necessarily those of a retained advocate, who expected his immediate reward, on the one hand; or of a rebel, who stood to make his account with office if he succeeded, or with savage punishment if he failed, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... the morning, two days later, they left with Sal Karone directing them to the Idealist center. They discovered that the term, at the edge of the city, was a mere euphemism. It was a long two-hour trip at the high speed of which ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones |
