Idiom
mince words
Meaning
To restrain oneself when speaking by withholding some comments or using euphemisms in order to be polite, tactful, etc.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“She does not mince words when she gives feedback.”
“The manager did not mince words about the project, explaining exactly why the current strategy was a complete failure.”
“If you want to save our friendship, please do not mince words and tell me exactly what I did to upset you.”
“Although he usually preferred to remain diplomatic, the critic did not mince words regarding the director's latest film, calling it a tedious and uninspired mess.”
Examples
simple
“She does not mince words when she gives feedback.”
contextual
“The manager did not mince words about the project, explaining exactly why the current strategy was a complete failure.”
“If you want to save our friendship, please do not mince words and tell me exactly what I did to upset you.”
complex
“Although he usually preferred to remain diplomatic, the critic did not mince words regarding the director's latest film, calling it a tedious and uninspired mess.”
Origin
First attested in the mid-1500s, the expression is a compound of the transitive figurative verb mince, meaning to utter something vaguely rather than frankly, and the plural noun words. The construction treats direct speech as a large, unpalatable portion that must be chopped into smaller, more manageable pieces before it can be presented to an audience. Narrowing the language served to soften the delivery, ensuring that a potentially offensive truth arrived in a form less likely to cause indigestion.
Key words
Related idioms
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