patience and tact
- noun
:
paciencia y tacto
- She handled the situation with great patience and tact.
Examples
-
Good teachers often need patience and tact to manage their classrooms effectively.
-
She handled the criticism with patience and tact, turning a tense situation into a constructive discussion.
-
Negotiating the agreement took considerable patience and tact from both sides.
-
Do you think he has enough patience and tact for this job?
-
She demonstrated great patience and tact while resolving the conflict between her friends.
-
In difficult meetings, his patience and tact helped ensure a smooth discussion.
-
It takes patience and tact to deal with upset customers effectively.
Synonyms
38
5.1
Calm control of your feelings and actions in a difficult situation
35
6.8
Careful, skilled handling of a difficult or sensitive situation
26
3.5
To say or do things carefully so you do not upset other people
12
5.8
Skill and care when dealing with people or difficult situations
Careful and kind behavior when dealing with people to avoid hurting them
Antonyms
How Tactful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward coordination of two nouns: 'patience' (calm tolerance) and 'tact' (skill in handling delicate situations). A B1 learner who knows both constituent words and the conjunction 'and' can directly infer that it refers to possessing both qualities; this literal, non-idiomatic composition is cross-linguistically common.
Etymology
The phrase patience and tact may come from the image of someone handling a fragile object, using patience, which is waiting calmly, and tact, which is touching gently. That's why it now means 'staying calm and careful when dealing with sensitive or difficult situations'.