butler lie
butler lie noun: a polite lie told in a text, on the phone, or through a similar electronic medium that provides an excuse for why one is unavailable.
Noun
butler lie (plural butler lies)
- A polite lie told in a text, on the phone, or through a similar electronic medium that provides an excuse for why one is unavailable.
- By indicating that a contact has read a message, this feature may affect response time expectations and also makes it more difficult to tell a butler lie excusing late reply to a message (eg, “sorry; just saw your message”).2011 March, Lindsay Reynolds, Samantha Gillette, Jason Marder, Zachary Miles, Pavel Vodenski, Ariella Weintraub, Jeremy P Birnholtz, Jeffrey T Hancock, “Contact stratification and deception...
- Thus, if we want to end a mediated communication we may tell a butler lie like 'someone has just knocked at the door', or if we do not want to meet someone at a suggested time we may say we cannot because we 'have an assignment to finish'.2016, Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Communication, page 245
Forms of butler lie
| plural | butler lies |
|---|
Origin of butler lie
Coined in 2009 by Jeff Hancock et al, referring to the idea of a butler blocking access to a home by lying about the occupant's availability.
Questions about butler lie
- What does butler lie mean?
- Butler lie means a polite lie told in a text, on the phone, or through a similar electronic medium that provides an excuse for why one is unavailable.
- What part of speech is butler lie?
- Butler lie is a noun.
- What is the plural of butler lie?
- The plural of butler lie is butler lies.
Words near butler lie in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: butler lie (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “butler lie.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/butler_lie. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.