"butler lie" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined in 2009 by Jeff Hancock et al, referring to the idea of a butler blocking access to a home by lying about the occupant's availability.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "butler lies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "butler lie (plural butler lies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011 March, Lindsay Reynolds, Samantha Gillette, Jason Marder, Zachary Miles, Pavel Vodenski, Ariella Weintraub, Jeremy P Birnholtz, Jeffrey T Hancock, “Contact stratification and deception: blackberry messenger versus SMS use among students”, in Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work",
          "text": "By indicating that a contact has read a message, this feature may affect response time expectations and also makes it more difficult to tell a butler lie excusing late reply to a message (eg, “sorry; just saw your message”).",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Communication, page 245",
          "text": "Thus, if we want to end a mediated communication we may tell a butler lie like 'someone has just knocked at the door', or if we do not want to meet someone at a suggested time we may say we cannot because we 'have an assignment to finish'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, Cassandra Parkin, The Winter's Child",
          "text": "He's lying, but it's a polite lie. A butler lie.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A polite lie told in a text, on the phone, or through a similar electronic medium that provides an excuse for why one is unavailable."
      ],
      "id": "en-butler_lie-en-noun-xQF32PWh",
      "links": [
        [
          "polite",
          "polite"
        ],
        [
          "lie",
          "lie"
        ],
        [
          "text",
          "text"
        ],
        [
          "phone",
          "phone"
        ],
        [
          "unavailable",
          "unavailable"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "butler lie"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "Coined in 2009 by Jeff Hancock et al, referring to the idea of a butler blocking access to a home by lying about the occupant's availability.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "butler lies",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "butler lie (plural butler lies)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011 March, Lindsay Reynolds, Samantha Gillette, Jason Marder, Zachary Miles, Pavel Vodenski, Ariella Weintraub, Jeremy P Birnholtz, Jeffrey T Hancock, “Contact stratification and deception: blackberry messenger versus SMS use among students”, in Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work",
          "text": "By indicating that a contact has read a message, this feature may affect response time expectations and also makes it more difficult to tell a butler lie excusing late reply to a message (eg, “sorry; just saw your message”).",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2016, Owen Hargie, Skilled Interpersonal Communication, page 245",
          "text": "Thus, if we want to end a mediated communication we may tell a butler lie like 'someone has just knocked at the door', or if we do not want to meet someone at a suggested time we may say we cannot because we 'have an assignment to finish'.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, Cassandra Parkin, The Winter's Child",
          "text": "He's lying, but it's a polite lie. A butler lie.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A polite lie told in a text, on the phone, or through a similar electronic medium that provides an excuse for why one is unavailable."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "polite",
          "polite"
        ],
        [
          "lie",
          "lie"
        ],
        [
          "text",
          "text"
        ],
        [
          "phone",
          "phone"
        ],
        [
          "unavailable",
          "unavailable"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "butler lie"
}