This is a list of euphemisms.

Contents

1 Euphemisms for the profane 1.1 Religious euphemisms 1.2 Excretory euphemisms 1.3 Sexual euphemisms 2 Doublespeak 2.1 Corporate 2.2 Espionage 2.3 Military 2.4 Political 2.5 Social 2.6 Sports 2.7 Other

Euphemisms for the profane

Religious euphemisms

• God/God damn:
  • goldarn
  • golly
  • gosh
  • gadzooks, supposedly God's hooks, the nails by which Jesus hung on the cross
  • gawd
  • goldang
  • Godfrey Daniel, used by W.C. Fields
  • doggone
  • gosh darn
  • dad gum
  • gad
  • dog, an anagram for God used mostly in the phrase Oh my dog! or Oh My Feicking Dog. Also known in the internet world as OMD or OMFD.
  • (See also tetragrammaton for the taboo of the Hebrew name of God.)
• Damn/Damnation:
  • darn
  • drat
  • durn
  • dang
• Hell:
  • H-E-double-toothpicks (or -hockey-sticks)
  • heck
  • Sam Hill (What in Sam Hill is going on here?)
  • "The other place" (as opposed to Heaven, not used as an oath)
  • tarnation
  • the hot place (now archaic)
• Jesus/Jesus Christ:
  • gee
  • jeez
  • gee whiz
  • golly gee
  • jeepers or jeepers creepers
  • Jiminy Cricket
• The Devil:
  • the dark one
  • the deuce (The deuce you say!—archaic)
  • the dickens, in use before the era of Charles Dickens
  • Old Nick
  • Old Scratch or Old Scrotch

Excretory euphemisms

• urine/urinate:
  • gypsies kiss
  • number one
  • pee
  • piddle
  • tinkle
  • wee-wee
  • whiz
  • take a leak
  • relieve oneself

• feces/defecation:
  • number two
  • bowel movement or bm
  • droppings
  • dung
  • poo (and variations such as poop and poopie)
  • doo (typically in dog doo, but see below)
  • night soil archaic, but composted human feces are still so called
  • stool

• toilets / bathrooms
  • men's room / women's room
  • the little boy's room / the little girl's room
  • restroom
  • the porcelain god, often in connection with vomiting
  • the throne
  • the head, sailor's terminology. The facility was placed on the bow or head of the ship in case of falls while at sea
  • the john
  • the potty
  • outhouse
  • backhouse
  • donnicker
  • the big white telephone or the white courtesy phone, "talking to John on..."
  • W.C., short for Water Closet

Sexual euphemisms

• The term adult for sexually oriented for pornographic. For example:
  • adult film for pornographic movie
  • adult actress or adult actor for porn star
  • adult film industry for pornography industry
  • adult bookstore for pornography store
  • adult novelties for sex toys (often seen on signs)
• erotic dancer or exotic dancer for stripper
• sex worker for porn star, stripper, or prostitute
• The term eve teasing is used for sexual harassment in Indian English

• genitalia:
  • crotch
  • gonads (can also refer to the proto-genitalia of an unborn fetus)
  • groin
  • private parts/privates
  • intimate parts
  • vagina (an early euphemism from Latin in place of the English cunt)

• breasts:
  • mammets (archaic)
  • bosom
  • chest
  • bust
  • white meat (Victorian) circumlocution for chicken breast, to avoid association with human breasts)

• buttocks:
  • bum
  • fanny (A.E. only; means vagina in B.E. See: American and British English differences)
  • tush or tushy
  • bottom
  • posterior
  • rump
  • heinie (from "hind end")
  • keister

• Having sex:
  • feick
  • fuck (archaic, now a dysphemism)
  • mac
  • fornication
  • fudge
  • lay with or lie with. For example, Harry lay with Sally
  • know. Biblical Adam knew Eve; generally phrased know him/her... in the Biblical sense
  • sleep with
  • hook-up
  • make love
  • have intercourse
  • carnal knowledge
  • act of union
  • do. For example Harry did Sally

Doublespeak

Corporate

• layoff, downsize, rightsize, headcount adjustment, RIF (reduction in force), realign: firing employees
  • also made redundant, let go, dismissed, terminated, services are no longer required, et cetera, for firing in general
  • The Dilbert series satirizes this in one strip in which an employee is unable to figure out he has been laid off.
  • Interesting fact: in ancient Rome, headcount was the term used to describe the lowest class of workers, the ones just above slaves.
• job flexibility: lack of job security (where job security means an actual or implied promise of continued employment)
• outsource: firing local employees to hire cheaper labor elsewhere.
• replacement workers: scabs or strikebreakers in labour disputes

Espionage

• classified: in general usage, "secret"; in governmental usage, information which has been evaluated and possibly assigned a security clearance.
  Since at least World War II, United States military and governmental information has been distinguished into classes corresponding to increasing levels of security clearances required by those people allowed access to it, and has come to be called classified information (as in "classified for a particular clearance").
• unclassified: in general usage, "not secret"; in governmental usage, information which has not been assigned a security clearance.
  Information which has not been assigned a classification; most public information falls into this category, which is the default state of information. Stands in contrast to information which has been evaluated and classified as "Public".
• declassified: in general and governmental usage, formerly but not presently secret
  Information which had as some point been classified as secret, but has since been released to the public.
• intelligence: information and sources of information (spies and spying)
• human intelligence: information from spies and interrogated prisoners, and other information from human sources (such as weather reports or economic studies) used by a secret or military agency
• asset: a secret agency's recruited, clandestine human source in a foreign country (foreign spies)
• wet work: assassination
• physical persuasion or physical pressure: torture

Military

• defense: war
  as in Department of Defense, formed by the merging of the Department of War and Department of the Navy
• neutralize or service: to kill or disable a target
• friendly fire: being inadvertently and mistakenly attacked by your allies
• collateral damage: unintentional killing or damage; bystander deaths and injuries
• area denial munitions: landmines
• bombs which kill civilians are, according to The Pentagon, "incontinent ordnance" (Lutz)
• preemptive war: to invade a foreign country so that it would not be invaded itself or be subjected to an enemy strike early on
• pre-hostility: peace
• secure an area (or mop up): kill remaining enemy soldiers
• aerial ordnance the use of bombs or missiles by air
• assymetric warfare local violence or unrest, suicide bombing; contained violence.
• terrorist or insurgent or freedom fighter: a rebel
• casualty: death or injury
• post-traumatic stress disorder, a euphemism for operational exhaustion, euphemism for battle fatigue, a euphemism for shell shock. Used as an example of dehumanization of language (particularly by the American comedian George Carlin). The terms were used in the Vietnam War, Korean War, World War II and World War I respectively. Note, however, that Post-traumatic stress disorder has occurred outside wars, e.g. among rape victims
• engage: to fight the enemy head on
• engagement: a small battle, a brief firefight
• projectile: anything that can be fired at the enemy, such as bullets, artillery shells, rockets

Political

• regime: government (negative term)
• the Nazi term Endlösung ("final solution"): the Holocaust
• final solution: The Holocaust
  Doublespeak was very common in the Third Reich. Goebbels' Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda (Ministry of the Reich for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda) coined thousands of new German words. Other Examples include: Concentration Camp (labor/death camp), "Heim ins Reich" (occupation of Austria), the meanings of "Volk" (people) and "Rasse" (race).
• ethnic cleansing:genocide
• appeasement: to give in to aggression or, to negotiate an agreement
• freedom fighter: armed political rebel (positive term) / terrorist working for us. This is a fine example of Orwellian blackwhite.
• terrorist: armed political rebel (negative term). / freedom fighter working for them.
• homicide bomber: suicide bomber (negative term)
• taxpayer: citizen
  The word taxpayer means an individual or business that pays taxes, and when used in a discussion of government revenues is not doublespeak. However, using the term interchangeably with citizen does two things. One, it disguises the fact that political policies that apply to individual taxpayers also apply to corporate taxpayers. Two, it appeals to middle-class citizens by excluding citizens perceived to be bludgers, such as welfare beneficiaries and others perceived to pay little or no tax. More subtly, use of this term dilutes the idea of citizenship itself, and implies that there is nothing more to society than mere economic rationalism, as per Margaret Thatcher's famous pronouncement. This usage has become popular in the names of certain conservative groups, for example, Taxpayers for Common Sense and National Taxpayers Union in the United States, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the lobby group Association of Consumers and Taxpayers in New Zealand.
• the Axis of Evil coined by the Bush Administration, countries with defense policies and international relations opposed to those of the United States.
• internment facility: prison
• protective custody for "imprisonment without due process of law"
• intervention: invasion
• executive action: assassination
• detainee: non-citizen held in immigration detention centers by many countries or those held in Guantanamo Bay by the United States

Social

• job seekers: the unemployed
• asylum seekers: refugees
• suspected illegal entrants or illegals: used when asylum seekers is considered to grant too much legitimacy
• unsavory character: criminal (or, more specifically suspected criminal)
• involuntary conversion: plane crash (Lutz)
• disabled, differently abled, or handi-capable: crippled
• sales advisor: shop assistant
• senior citizen: old person
• visually impaired: blind or nearly so
• comfort women: prostitute, later specifically women forced into sexual slavery during World War II (see also Joy Division)
• Customer Service Representative: a title given to today's bank tellers
• illegal alien: illegal immigrants

Sports

• cost certainty: salary-cap; often used by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman during his negotiations with the NHL Players Association during the 2004-05 NHL lockout; Bettman wants to impose a salary cap on NHL teams
• incident: a fight, or some other violent action such as a slash in hockey that results in suspension and/or fine, or a fight between a player and a fan
• upper/lower body injury: often used in hockey, this term implies that a player is injured but the specifics of the injury are not disclosed; especially used during playoff time so that opposing teams will not be able to find out the extent of the players' injuries; for example, a leg injury can be classified as a "lower body injury", a shoulder injury can be classified as an "upper body injury"
• scratch: used in hockey, implies that a player is taken off the roster for a game usually due to injury (scratching a player off the roster list); a healthy scratch means that the player (usually a struggling player) is taken off the roster due to the coach's decision, not because of an injury
• contraction: a plan to reduce (fold) a number of teams in a league in the hopes of increasing its competitiveness and reducing the financial losses of the league; Major League Baseball once considered folding the Minnesota Twins and the Montreal Expos
• objects: things thrown onto the field resulting in the disruption of a game/match, such as bottles, cups, flares
• seeking a trade: a sign that a player badly wants out of his current team for various reasons
• advisor: a position at the executive level whose job is to advise the General Manager and/or President of a team; hiring an advisor usually implies that there is a degree of incompetency at the management level

Other

• terminated: Mafia-style killings
• spontaneous energetic disassembly for "explosion" (reportedly used by a director of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant)
• computer-implemented invention: computer programming method in the context of patent law, because software patents are a controversial topic
• deactivating satellite receivers: doing malicious damage to receiver firmware in response to widespread pirate decryption problems (this euphemism was used in Globe and Mail coverage of Bell ExpressVu - both just happen to be owned by the same company)