weasel word

短语

<美>含糊其词的话, 模棱两可的话

词形变化

weasel words 复数 weasel words weasel worded weasel wording weasel words 三单 weasel wording 现在分词 weasel worded 过去式 weasel worded 过去分词

别名

weaselword

释义与例句

n.
  1. 1.

    A word that negates or removes the meaning of the word it qualifies.

    过时 贬义

    1900. Century Magazine, quoted in Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1987)). Weasel words are words that suck all of the life out of the words next to them just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell.

    Now, you can have universal training or you can have voluntary training, but when you use the word 'voluntary' to qualify the word 'universal', you are using a weasel word; it has sucked all the meaning out of 'universal'. The two words flatly contradict one another.

  2. 2.

    A word used to hedge a statement, for example to make it vague, equivocal, or misleading.

    狡辩之辞

    贬义
v.
  1. 1.

    To use weasel words.

词汇关系

名词

上位词 2

reservation qualification

词源

Initially a reference to weasels' practice of making small holes in eggs and then eating the contents, leaving the shell; later sometimes taken as a reference to the weasel's "wriggling, evasive character".

来源：wiktionary