sweeten the pill
sweeten the pill verb: synonym of sugarcoat the pill.
Verb
sweeten the pill (third-person singular simple present sweetens the pill, present participle sweetening the pill, simple past and past participle sweetened the pill)
- Synonym of sugarcoat the pill.
- This would not sweeten the pill to the French; but in making that acquisition we had some view to our own good as well as theirs, and I believe the greatest good of both will be promoted by whatever will amalgamate us together.1807 January 13, Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Dickinson”, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
- Exercise of all sorts is one of the lessons we are to learn,” said Mrs. Minot, suggesting all the pleasant things she could to sweeten the pill for her pupils, two of whom did love their books, not being old enough to know that even an excellent thing may be overdone.1880, Louisa May Alcott, chapter XXIII, in Jack and Jill: A Village Story
- Synonyms:
- sugarcoat the pill
Synonyms of sweeten the pill
Forms of sweeten the pill
| third-person singular present | sweetens the pill |
|---|---|
| present participle | sweetening the pill |
| past participle | sweetened the pill |
| past | sweetened the pill |
Questions about sweeten the pill
- What does sweeten the pill mean?
- Sweeten the pill means synonym of sugarcoat the pill.
- What part of speech is sweeten the pill?
- Sweeten the pill is a verb.
- What is the past tense of sweeten the pill?
- The past tense of sweeten the pill is sweetened the pill.
Words near sweeten the pill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sweeten 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:
Cite this entry: “sweeten the pill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sweeten_the_pill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.