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weasel word

noun

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".

Definitions

  1. A word that negates or removes the meaning of the word it qualifies.

  2. A word used to hedge a statement, for example to make it vague, equivocal, or misleading.

    • 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.

  3. To use weasel words.

    • 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.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for weasel word. 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