Definition:
A modifying word that undermines or contradicts the meaning of the word, phrase, or clause it accompanies, such as "genuine replica." More broadly, any word used with the intention to mislead or misinform. See also:
Etymology:
Expression popularized by Theodore Roosevelt in a speech in 1916Examples, and Observations:
- "In June, 1900, the Century Magazine published a story entitled 'The Stained Glass Political Platform,' by Stewart Chaplin, . . . and on page 235 these words occur:
"'Why, weasel words are words that suck all the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks an egg and leaves the shell. If you heft the egg afterward it's as light as a feather, and not very filling when you're hungry, but a basketful of them would make quite a show, and would bamboozle the unwary.' . . .
"This is the origin of the term Colonel [Theodore] Roosevelt has made famous."
(Herbert M. Lloyd, letter to The New York Times, June 3, 1916) - "As an old Time writer, I immediately spotted, in two consecutive sentences, the weasel-word 'reportedly,' the Time-honored hedge against the possibility that the facts in a given sentence might not hold up to reasonable scrutiny."
(John Gregory Dunne, "Your Time Is My Time." The New York Review of Books, April 23, 1992) - "I hate any variation on the word 'pamper.' It's a weasel word that, while pretending to celebrate women, in fact expresses disdain and distaste for them."
(Julie Burchill, "A Suitable Case for Treatment." The Guardian, Feb 23, 2008) - "To conservative rhetors in Congress, whatever is not blandly or angrily populist is elitist. In their resort to this weasel word, the patriotically correct on the right are as bad as the politically correct on the residual left."
(Robert Hughes, "Pulling the Fuse on Culture." Time, Aug. 7, 1995)
Also Known As: weaselism
