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. (informal, idiomatic) To make an unpleasant event less displeasing.

   Synonyms: gild the pill, sweeten the pill

   Near-synonyms: polish a turd, put lipstick on a pig, sweeten the pot

   • 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^[1]:

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