Word.ws English Dictionary

sweetening the pill

sweetening the pill is the present participle and gerund of sweeten the pill.

Meaning of sweeten 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)

  1. 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

Questions about sweetening the pill

What is sweetening the pill the present participle and gerund of?
Sweetening the pill is the present participle and gerund of sweeten the pill.

Words near sweetening the pill in the dictionary

  1. sweeteners
  2. sweetenesse
  3. sweetenest
  4. sweeteneth
  5. sweetening
  6. sweetening the pill
  7. sweetening the pot
  8. sweetening up
  9. sweetenings
  10. sweetens
  11. sweetens the pill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sweetening the pill (page history and authors); 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.

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