"polite fiction" meaning in English

See polite fiction in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-polite fiction.ogg Forms: polite fictions [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} polite fiction (plural polite fictions)
  1. (idiomatic) A social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment. Wikipedia link: polite fiction Tags: idiomatic Related terms: denial, elephant in the room
    Sense id: en-polite_fiction-en-noun-XhCBCxq7 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "polite fictions",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "polite fiction (plural polite fictions)",
      "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"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Susan is only able to deal with the fact that her husband has sex with the man down the street through a polite fiction. She knows what her husband is really doing when he says he is going \"to buy cigarettes\".",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment."
      ],
      "id": "en-polite_fiction-en-noun-XhCBCxq7",
      "links": [
        [
          "social",
          "social"
        ],
        [
          "scenario",
          "scenario"
        ],
        [
          "conflict",
          "conflict"
        ],
        [
          "embarrassment",
          "embarrassment"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "denial"
        },
        {
          "word": "elephant in the room"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "polite fiction"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-polite fiction.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-polite_fiction.ogg/En-au-polite_fiction.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-polite_fiction.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "polite fiction"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "polite fictions",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "polite fiction (plural polite fictions)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "denial"
    },
    {
      "word": "elephant in the room"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Susan is only able to deal with the fact that her husband has sex with the man down the street through a polite fiction. She knows what her husband is really doing when he says he is going \"to buy cigarettes\".",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "social",
          "social"
        ],
        [
          "scenario",
          "scenario"
        ],
        [
          "conflict",
          "conflict"
        ],
        [
          "embarrassment",
          "embarrassment"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A social scenario in which all participants are aware of a truth, but pretend to believe in some alternative version of events to avoid conflict or embarrassment."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "polite fiction"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-polite fiction.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/14/En-au-polite_fiction.ogg/En-au-polite_fiction.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/En-au-polite_fiction.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "polite fiction"
}

Download raw JSONL data for polite fiction meaning in English (1.6kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.