polite fiction
polite fiction noun: a social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment.
Noun
polite fiction (plural polite fictions)
- A social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment.
- Susan is only able to deal with the fact that her husband has sex with the man down the street through a polite fiction. She knows what her husband is really doing when he says he is going "to buy cigarettes".
Forms of polite fiction
| plural | polite fictions |
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Questions about polite fiction
- What does polite fiction mean?
- Polite fiction means a social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment.
- What part of speech is polite fiction?
- Polite fiction is a noun.
- What is the plural of polite fiction?
- The plural of polite fiction is polite fictions.
Words near polite fiction in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: polite fiction (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-polite fiction.ogg.
Cite this entry: “polite fiction.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/polite_fiction. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.