"Euphemism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The fact was well known. There was no one within a five-mile radius of William's home who did not know it. Sensitive old ladies had fled shuddering from their front windows when William marched down the street singing (the word is a euphemism) his scout songs in his strong young voice. Curious smells emanated from the depth of the garden where William performed mysterious culinary operations. One old lady whose cat had disappeared looked at William with ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... bid to live long," a conventional euphemism for "has died." "Remember what his name was," ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... full and bitter share of the grief of a common household. Even yet he and Colannah were wont to sadly talk of them with that painful elimination of their names, a mark of Indian reverence to the dead, substituting the euphemism "the one who is gone," and linger for hours over the fire at night or on the shady river-bank in sunlit afternoons, rehearsing their deeds and recalling their traits, and repeating their sayings with that blending of affectionate pride and sorrow that is the consolation ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... stomach. He told us what a blessed time Christmas was, and that people did well to be joyful on the anniversary of their Savior's birth. Before dismissing us with his blessing to our "little rooms," which was his habitual euphemism for our cells, he remarked that he could not wish us a happy Christmas in our unhappy condition, but he would wish us a peaceful Christmas; and he ventured to promise us that boon if, after leaving chapel, we fell on our knees and ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... some leisure day, draw up the curtain of his own eventful biography. We collected from his former work that he was not always what he now is. The pursuits and society of his youth scarcely could be denominated, in Troloppian euphemism, la creme de la creme; but they stood him in good stead; then and there was he trained for the encounter of Spain . . . whilst sowing his wild oats, he became passionately fond of horseflesh. . ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... proceeding from the union belonged to the master; that the servant could only go free by deserting his wife and his own children and leaving them in slavery (Ex. xxi. 1-6). It was under these circumstances that God taught that a man might sell his daughter to be a "maid servant" (the translator's euphemism for concubine), and that, "if she please not her master" she may be bought back again, or if he "take him another" (translator supplying "wife" as throwing an air of respectability over the transaction) she may go free (Ibid. 7-11). It was under these circumstances that God ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... provinces, seized six hundred cities and towns, and put an end to twenty million people in the space of twelve years by fire, sword, and famine.[286] To this bloody expedition Hung Sew Tseuen, a master of modern euphemism, gave the name of Crusade of the Great Peace. For twelve years this "Crusade" lasted, and it might have endured much longer had it not been for the help given by outsiders. It was there that "Chinese" Gordon won his laurels ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... [FN307] The euphemism has before been noticed: the Moslem reader would not like to pronounce the words "I am a Nazarene." The same formula occurs a little lower down to save the reciter or reader from saying "Be my wife ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... there is nothing new under the sun. Of course, a great deal of it all was "imagination." But the question then, as now is, what is this wonder-working imagination?—unless the word be used as a mere euphemism for lying, which really, in many cases, is hardly fair. We cannot wonder at the old Neoplatonists for attributing these strange phenomena to spiritual influence, when we see some who ought to know ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... white-shirted, but trouserless, deacons would listen to him. And furthermore, they gave him a warning—if Rime continued obstinate, they would hold him (Macpherson) responsible and tapu his store. Rime did continue obstinate, and next morning the trader found himself tabooed, which is a mere euphemism for boycotted. ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... a bow. "Recognising your present point of view," said I, gallantly, "I thank you for the kindly euphemism. But may one allowably demonstrate the fallacy of this same point of view? I thank you: for silence, I am told, is proverbially equal to assent. I am, then, one Robert Townsend, by birth a gentleman, by courtesy an ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... problems. As it is, we reach a compromise, such as that of sleep, in which contact with reality is temporarily abandoned. In so far as sleep is psychologically determined, it is a regressive phenomenon. It is interesting that the most frequent euphemism or metaphor for death is sleep. Sleep is a normal regression. It does not always give the unstable individual sufficient relaxation from the demands of adaptation and so pathological regressions take place, one of ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... 255-347). In consonance with his general principle of interpretation, Mr. Hartland is mainly concerned with the traces of primitive thought and custom to be seen in the Swan Maidens. Originally these were, according to him, probably regarded as actual swans, the feathery robe being a later symbolic euphemism, though I would incidentally remark that the whole of the story as a story depends upon the seizure of a separate dress involving the capture of the swan bride. Mr. Hartland is inclined to believe partly with F. ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... perish than fail to keep faith with God and with their forefathers is a victory for mankind, and is everlasting. How poor and vain in comparison with this stern and sincere eloquence seem the supple time-service and euphemism of vulgar politicians of whose cunning and fruitless spiderwebs the latter years have been so prolific. It is worth while to do right from high motives, and to care for no gain that is not gained worthily. The men ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... 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
... abandoned the conventional themes, which do not appear in it: none of the stock ornamentation, or choice plots of love or war, or high exceptional personages of Old-World song; nothing, as I may say, for beauty's sake—no legend or myth or romance, nor euphemism, nor rhyme." ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... called "the Heavy Hill," as in the verse already quoted, and in consequence of the melancholy processions which frequently passed from Newgate bound Tyburn-wards, "riding in a cart up the Heavy Hill" became a euphemism for being hanged. From Farringdon Street to Fetter Lane was Holborn Hill, and Holborn proper extended from Fetter Lane to ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... there is frequent mention of such heavens and hells, and when the idea of rebirths is also met with, the rebirths are regarded as stages towards the reward or punishment of the individual conscious souls. It is the popular idea of heaven that has given rise to the common euphemism for to die, namely, to become a ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... accruing from "General Burgoyne's capitulation to Mr. Gates"—such was the Tory euphemism, somewhat ill considered, since it implied that the gallant British commander had capitulated to a civilian—was to be reaped in Europe. The excellent Hartley was already benevolently dreaming of effecting an accommodation ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... red, white, and blue, in her lap and was knitting a curious-looking article, and it came to her that perhaps she, too, was out of her mind? Perhaps this was a mental sanitarium? True, she had inquired for the parsonage. Could it be that in the cultured East that was a new euphemism for ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... euphemism that the verb "discuss" can be used to express the way in which the duet between the president and secretary was being performed. As a matter of fact they were in full wrangle with an energy ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... euphemism, has likewise come to mean a corpse: hence the verb hotoke-zukuri, 'to look ghastly,' to have the semblance ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... window frames exactly alike, brought over ready-made from Norway or Sweden. The walls are thin, and the winds of winter blow through them piteously, and if a man and his wife should unfortunately "have words" (the pleasing country euphemism for a violent quarrel) all their neighbours can hear them. The scenery is utterly spoilt by these ugly eyesores. Villas at Hindhead seem to have broken out upon the once majestic hill like a red skin eruption. The jerry-built villa is invading our heaths and ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... euphemisms, among them, the poetical Little Mary. No such squeamishness is known in America. The American discusses his stomach as freely as he discusses his business. More, he regards its name with a degree of respect verging upon reverence—and so he uses it as a euphemism for the whole region from the diaphragm to the pelvic arch. Below his heart he has only a stomach and ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... EUPHEMISM, is in speech or writing the avoiding of an unpleasant or indelicate word or expression by the use of one which is less direct, and which calls up a less disagreeable image in the mind. Thus for "he died" is substituted "he fell asleep," or "he ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... cannot lay claim to any real acquaintance. To the dictionary you accordingly betake yourself. There you find that Mr. Eu is of a family quite respectable but not prone to marriage. Euphony, eupepsia, euphemism, euthanasia are of his retiring kindred. The meaning of the eu blood, so the dictionary informs you, is well. The gen blood, as you see exemplified in gentle, general, genital, engender, carries with it the ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... grounds. When Cicero stood on the prison steps, where he had waited to receive the report of those who were making sure work with the prisoners within, and announced their fate to the assembled crowd below in the single word "Vixerunt" (a euphemism which we can only weakly translate into "They have lived their life"), no doubt he felt that he and the republic held theirs from that moment by a firmer tenure; no doubt very many of those who heard him felt that they could breathe again, now that the ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... a euphemism invented to describe the status of a personage, or a personage of a status, of which it is awkward to speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a new word comes to ...
— A Man of Business • Honore de Balzac
... is of course a euphemism for the fact that the Rajputs conquered and dispossessed the Bhils of Idar. But it is interesting as an indication that they did not consider themselves to derive a proper title to the land merely ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... prejudices thus named, the only two that need further mention are the charges of priest-worship and ass-worship. The former charge, named by Minucius Felix, ch. ix, and thus described here by a euphemism, may be seen in Kortholt, b. ii. ch. iv. p. 319; it probably arose from the homage paid to the bishop on bended knee at ordination. The latter, taken out of Minucius Felix (ch. ii.), and Tertullian (Apol. 16), is more singular and puzzling even after the discussions by older ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... with no semblance of health in her. There was nothing for it but the downfall of the world; good-bye civilization and all that was ever upbuilded of old. Come now; we should become good Congo forester in our time, with what they call 'long pig' for our daintiest diet. It is a euphemism for ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris |
