diplomatic flu
diplomatic flu noun: an illness feigned by one or more government officials or other public figures as an excuse for an absence really based on political factors.
Noun
diplomatic flu (uncountable)
- An illness feigned by one or more government officials or other public figures as an excuse for an absence really based on political factors.
- The winner . . . was conservative Charles Griffin, 41, and he carefully avoided the race issue. Avoiding the campaign as well, Griffin stayed home with a case of diplomatic flu while Evers' forces staged a get-out-the-vote campaign.1968 March 22, “Closer to Home”, in Time
- That is a carom-shot criticism of the administration, which has come down with a case of the diplomatic flu known as international conference-itis.1988, George Will, "Democratic Double Standard," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11 Apr. (retrieved 31 Nay 2009)
Questions about diplomatic flu
- What does diplomatic flu mean?
- Diplomatic flu means an illness feigned by one or more government officials or other public figures as an excuse for an absence really based on political factors.
- What part of speech is diplomatic flu?
- Diplomatic flu is a noun.
Words near diplomatic flu in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: diplomatic flu (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-diplomatic flu.ogg.
Cite this entry: “diplomatic flu.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/diplomatic_flu. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.