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Pygmalion word

Pygmalion word noun: the word bloody.

Noun

Pygmalion word (plural Pygmalion words)

  1. (UK, euphemistic, obsolete) The word bloody.
    • As soon as men re-entered the company of women adjustments were made; Emma Duffin reported that one of her charges 'used the 'Pygmalion' word to me' (bloody), but she made him apologise.1918, Julian Walker, Words and the First World War: Language, Memory, Vocabulary, Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2005, →ISBN, page 117
    • Sheridan was speaking about the council fleecing tenants and used a pygmalion word.1960 April 28, The Times

Forms of Pygmalion word

pluralPygmalion words

Origin of Pygmalion word

From the 1913 George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, which included the line "not bloody likely" – at that point, the word "bloody" was considered scandalous. See also not Pygmalion likely.

Questions about Pygmalion word

What does Pygmalion word mean?
Pygmalion word means the word bloody.
What part of speech is Pygmalion word?
Pygmalion word is a noun.
What is the plural of Pygmalion word?
The plural of Pygmalion word is Pygmalion words.

Words near Pygmalion word in the dictionary

  1. pygidiums
  2. pygmaean
  3. pygmalion
  4. Pygmalion effect
  5. Pygmalion effects
  6. Pygmalion word
  7. Pygmalionesque
  8. Pygmalionic
  9. pygmalionism
  10. pygmalions
  11. pygmaliosexual

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Pygmalion word (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: “Pygmalion word.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pygmalion_word. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.