mince words

Language: en

Meaning: (idiomatic,intransitive,chiefly in the negative)Torestrainoneself whenspeakingbywithholdingsomecommentsorusingeuphemismsin order tobepolite,tactful, etc.Synonym:mince mattersNear-synonym:pull punches[1599(date written),William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies[…](First Folio), London:[…]Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward]Blount, published1623,→OCLC,[Act V, scene ii],page93, column 1:I knovv no vvayes tomince itin loue, but directly to ſay, I loue you;[…]]1699,Joseph Wyeth, “Sect[ion]IX. Concerning Our Belief of the Divinity and Incarnation of Christ”, inAnguis Flagellatus: Or, A Switch for the Snake. Being an Answer to the Third and Last Edition of the Snake in the Grass.[…], London:[…]T[ace]Sowle,[…],→OCLC,page206:TheSnakein like manner,mincesthevvordsofE. B.only quoting from p. 149. (of his VVorks)The very Chriſt of God is vvithin us; leaving out vvhat follovvs,VVe dare not deny him, and vve are members of his Body, and of his Fleſh, and of his Bone, as theEpheſiansvvere, (Eph[esians]5. 30.)[1753(indicated as1754), [Samuel Richardson], “Letter I. Miss Harriet Byron, to Miss Lucy Selby.”, inThe History of Sir Charles Grandison.[…], volume II, London:[…]S[amuel]Richardson;[a]nd sold by C. Hitch and L. Hawes,[…],→OCLC,page10:Miſs Gr[andison]. Shall I give it you in plain Engliſh? /Mr. Gr.You don't uſe tomince it.]1826, [Benjamin Disraeli], “The Receipt”, inVivian Grey, volume I, London:Henry Colburn,[…],→OCLC, book II,page100:My Lord, I must speak out.[…]Nothinkingman can for a moment suppose, that your Lordship's heart isvery warmin the cause of a party, which—for I will notmincemywords—has betrayed you.1847January –1848July,William Makepeace Thackeray, “In which Captain Dobbin Acts as the Messenger of Hymen”, inVanity Fair[…], London:Bradbury and Evans[…], published1848,→OCLC,page173:I ask you, William, could I suppose that the Emperor of Austria was a damned traitor—a traitor, and nothing more? I don'tmince words—a double-faced infernal traitor and schemer, who meant to have his son-in-law back all along.1919,Joseph Conrad, chapter I, inThe Arrow of Gold: A Story between Two Notes, London:T[homas]Fisher Unwin,[…],→OCLC, part V,page225:She believed me implicitly, except when I was telling her the truth about herself,mincingnowords, when she used to stand smilingly bashful as if I were overwhelming her with compliments.1920,Upton Sinclair, “§ 17”, in100%: The Story of a Patriot, Pasadena, Calif.:[…][B]y the author,→OCLC,page60:The detective did notmince words. "It's plain that you're a boob," he said.[1927],A[rthur] J[ames] Cook,The Nine Days, London:[…][F]or A. J. Cook by theCo-operative Printing Society[…],→OCLC, pages18–19:Every one of my Committee felt proud of the determined stand of our President[Herbert Smith], who did notmincehiswords, but spoke straight and to the point.1922October,T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “Part II. A Game of Chess.”, inThe Waste Land, 1st book edition, New York, N.Y.:Boni and Liveright, published December 1922,→OCLC,pages22–23, lines139–141:When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said— / I didn'tmincemywords, I said to her myself, ⁠/Hurry up please its time1962August, “Let’s have Plain Speaking”, inModern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey:Ian Allan Publishing,→ISSN,→OCLC, page73:We remember, too, those admirable reports issued to every passenger during the final stages of the Kent Coast electrification, which did notmince wordsabout the disruption of normal working, but which often turned the situations into an instructive illustration of the complexity of modern railway working.1983,James C[hien] H[ung] Shen, “Rejoining the Government”, in Robert Myers, editor,The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books,→ISBN, page28:They all sought the President's views on the world situation in general and the Asian situation in particular. Withoutmincing wordshe would comment on his favorite theme, namely, the insidious scheme of the international Communists to conquer the free world.2006,Mary Lindemann, “A Very Diplomatic Affair”, inLiaisons dangereuses: Sex, Law, and Diplomacy in the Age ofFrederick the Great, Baltimore, Md.:Johns Hopkins University Press,→ISBN, part 1 (Events and Entanglements),page119:He[Mattheu de Basquiat, baron de la Houze]maintained that the city possessed no legal jurisdiction over[Antoine Ventura de]Sanpelayo as Spanish consul.[…]He hardlyminced words.2022July 27, Joseph Brennan, “Bridge Disasters that Spanned an Empire”, inRail, number962, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire:Bauer Media,→ISSN,→OCLC, page58:The coroner did notmince words, in charging the jury with their duty: "The bridge had been utterly neglected from the time that it was built and there had been no proper inspection of it …[…]."2022November 23, Joseph Los’e, “Dame Naida Glavish doesn’t mince words about Erebus Memorial”, inShayne Currie, editor,The New Zealand Herald‎[1], Auckland:New Zealand Media and Entertainment,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe originalon7 August 2023:DameNaida Glavishdid notminceherwordswhen she addressed the newly elected Waitematā Local Board yesterday about the location of the National Erebus Memorial. Before a packed meeting, the fiery Dame said she supports a National Erebus Memorial – but just not in[the]proposed site of the Parnell Gardens, as it means destroying a Pohutukawa that has longer standing than the Treaty of Waitangi.

Examples:

EN: Now look here, Babs. I'm not going to mince words.
ES: Escucha, Bárbara, No voy a andarme por las ramas:
EN: You don't mince words, do you?
ES: No tienes pelos en la lengua, ¿verdad?
EN: - Why mince words, Lexington?
ES: - Hablemos sin rodeos, Lexington.
EN: - You tell Mr. Topper his time is up, don't mince words with him, either he pays you now one week in advance or out he goes.
ES: Dígale al Sr. Topper que se le ha acabado el tiempo. No se ande con rodeos con él, o le paga ahora mismo una semana por adelantado o se va fuera.
EN: Very well, Laszlo, We won't mince words.
ES: Bien, Laszlo, no andaremos con rodeos.
EN: Let's not mince words.
ES: No juguemos con las palabras.
EN: As you know, I don't mince words.
ES: Como mi hermanita sabe, yo soy muy al pan pan y al vino vino.
EN: Let us not mince words.
ES: No tengamos miedo a las palabras.
EN: I never been one to mince words, but I wouldn't dirty my mouth naming her.
ES: Nunca he tenido pelos en la lengua, pero no ensuciaré mi boca calificándole.
EN: - I'm not gonna mince words and stand on protocol -
ES: - Yo no ando con rodeos...
EN: You don't mince words.
ES: - No se anda por las ramas.
EN: I will not mince words with you, Mr. Simpson.
ES: No daré rodeos con usted, señor Simpson. Sus amistades le hacen ser mi segundo.
EN: I won't mince words.
ES: Hablaré sin rodeos.
EN: If he makes an offer, it's not to mince words.
ES: Si hace una oferta, no es para andar con rodeos.
EN: Let's not mince words, I don't care what you call it here.
ES: Dejémonos de remilgos, me da igual como lo llamen Uds. aquí.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).

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