Idiom
backhanded compliment
Meaning
An insult disguised as a compliment; a compliment which can be interpreted as an insult.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“That was a backhanded compliment about my new haircut.”
“She gave me a backhanded compliment by saying I looked great for my age.”
“His remark was clearly a backhanded compliment, as he praised my work while implying it was surprisingly competent for someone with my limited experience.”
Examples
simple
“That was a backhanded compliment about my new haircut.”
contextual
“She gave me a backhanded compliment by saying I looked great for my age.”
complex
“His remark was clearly a backhanded compliment, as he praised my work while implying it was surprisingly competent for someone with my limited experience.”
Origin
A compound of *backhanded* and *compliment*, with similar figurative applications of *backhanded* appearing in the lexicon from at least the early 19th century.
Key words
Related idioms
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