weasel word
English
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Etymology
Initially a reference to weasels' practice of making small holes in eggs and then eating the contents, leaving the shell; later sometimes taken as a reference to the weasel's "wriggling, evasive character".[1]
Noun
weasel word (plural weasel words)
- (derogatory, dated) A word that negates or removes the meaning of the word it qualifies.
- 1900. Century Magazine, quoted in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1987)).
- Weasel words are words that suck all of the life out of the words next to them just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell.
- 1916 May 31, Theodore Roosevelt, speech delivered in St. Louis, MO:
- Now, you can have universal training or you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word 'voluntary' to qualify the word 'universal', you are using a weasel word; it has sucked all the meaning out of 'universal'. The two words flatly contradict one another.
- 1900. Century Magazine, quoted in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1987)).
- (derogatory) A word used to hedge a statement, for example to make it vague, equivocal, or misleading.
- 2021 December 1, Nigel Harris, “IRP snuffs out 'levelling up'”, in RAIL, number 945, page 3:
- In scrapping HS2's eastern leg and descoping Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR), Prime Minister Boris Johnson's frequent and unambiguous promises to build both have been exposed for the weasel words they were.
- Synonym: hedge
- Hypernym: qualifier
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Translations
word used to qualify or hedge a statement
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Verb
weasel word (third-person singular simple present weasel words, present participle weasel wording, simple past and past participle weasel worded)
- To use weasel words.
- 1979, Peter Straub, Ghost Story:
- Now Sears looked down at the person fate had put closer to him than anyone else in the world, and knew that Ricky was thinking that he had weasel-worded his way out of the last question.
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See also
- disclaimer
- Category:English hedges
Further reading
weasel word on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- weasel word at OneLook Dictionary Search
- “weasel words”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage (2001), page 926.