gild the pill
gild the pill verb: synonym of sugarcoat the pill.
Verb
gild the pill (third-person singular simple present gilds the pill, present participle gilding the pill, simple past and past participle gilded the pill)
- Synonym of sugarcoat the pill.
- For he who'd make his fellow-creatures wise / Should always gild the philosophic pill!1888, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, The Yeomen of the Guard […] , London: Chappel & Co., […], published c. 1911, page 17
- The chemists who first gilded the pill now sit on the Front Opposition Bench.1891 May 8, Mr. Goschen, “Purchase of Land, &c.”, in parliamentary debates (House of Commons)
- Synonyms:
- sugarcoat the pill
Synonyms of gild the pill
Forms of gild the pill
| third-person singular present | gilds the pill |
|---|---|
| present participle | gilding the pill |
| past participle | gilded the pill |
| past | gilded the pill |
Origin of gild the pill
Supposedly from an old pharmaceutical practice of coating bitter tasting pills with a thin layer of metal (see bitter pill).
Questions about gild the pill
- What does gild the pill mean?
- Gild the pill means synonym of sugarcoat the pill.
- What part of speech is gild the pill?
- Gild the pill is a verb.
- What is the past tense of gild the pill?
- The past tense of gild the pill is gilded the pill.
Words near gild the pill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gild the pill (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-gild the pill.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gild the pill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gild_the_pill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.