Word.ws English Dictionary

minced words

minced words is the simple past and past participle of mince words.

Meaning of mince words

Verb

mince words (third-person singular simple present minces words, present participle mincing words, simple past and past participle minced words)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To restrain oneself when speaking by withholding some comments or using euphemisms in order to be polite, tactful, etc.
    • Near-synonym: pull punches

Questions about minced words

What is minced words the simple past and past participle of?
Minced words is the simple past and past participle of mince words.

Words near minced words in the dictionary

  1. minced meats
  2. minced oath
  3. minced oaths
  4. minced one's words
  5. minced up
  6. minced words
  7. mincedness
  8. Minceirtoiree
  9. Mincel
  10. Mincels
  11. mincemeat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: minced words (page history and authors); mince words (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: “minced words.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/minced_words. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.