Euphemism

The word comes from Greek and literally means “to speak fair,” that’s fair as in “beautiful.”

So a euphemism has to sound better than the word it replaces.

But sometimes you don’t want to make nice. What about when you want to make things seem worse than they are?

Then you can’t use a euphemism, instead you have to use a dysphemism.

- courtesy Podictionary, the podcast for word lovers http://podictionary.com/index.php