gild the pill

verb

Etymology

Supposedly from an old pharmaceutical practice of coating bitter tasting pills with a thin layer of metal (see bitter pill).

Definitions

  1. Synonym of sugarcoat the pill.

    • For he who'd make his fellow-creatures wise / Should always gild the philosophic pill!
    • The chemists who first gilded the pill now sit on the Front Opposition Bench.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for gild the pill. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA