sugarcoat the pill

• sugarcoat a bitter pill

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sugarcoat the pill (third-person singular simple present sugarcoats the pill, present participle sugarcoating the pill, simple past and past participle sugarcoated the pill)

1. (idiomatic) To make an unpleasant situation more pleasant.

   Synonyms: gild the pill, sweeten the pill

   • 1930, Watson White, The Paris that is Paris, page 186:

     To sugarcoat the pill of payment the receiver of the tax was wont to refer to it disparagingly in the diminutive, calling it “la huchette,” “the little tax on a fish stall.”

   • 2008, Robert Solomon, David Sherman, editors, The Blackwell Guide to Continental Philosophy, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 326:

     Philosophy supposes that the argument is merely flavored with such imported images to sugarcoat the pill of difficult thinking for those unused to the bitter remedy of rigorous thought.

   • 2018 October 20, Zoe Wood, “Shopping malls' desperate decline comes to prime minister’s doorstep”, in The Guardian‎:

     One middle-aged woman does not sugar-coat the pill, rating the experience “one out of 10” because “shops keep shutting”.

• bitter pill to swallow
• swallow a bitter pill
• sweeten the pot