sugarcoat
UK /ˈʃʊɡəˌkəʊt/ · US /ˈʃʊɡɚˌkoʊt/ verb
Forms sugarcoats sugarcoating sugarcoated sugar coat sugar-coat
- verb (transitive) To coat with sugar.
- verb (transitive, figurative) To make superficially more attractive; to give a falsely pleasant appearance to. “There's no way to sugarcoat the loss of the space shuttle; it was an unmitigated disaster.”
Synonyms
candy-coat gild gild the pill sugarcoat the pill glaze candy
Etymology
From sugar + coat; figurative sense from the practice of coating medicinal tablets or pills with sugar in order to disguise their unpleasant taste (sugarcoating the pill).
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “sugarcoat”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details