turd polishing
- noun
- Offensive
:
maquillar la mierda
- The company's new marketing strategy is just turd polishing, making their outdated product seem fresh and innovative.
And I don't mean to denigrate dogs in in any way, but when you're doing that, you are, we call it turd polishing.
- And I don't mean to denigrate dogs in in any way, but when you're doing that, you are, we call it turd polishing.
Examples
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Many critics accused the film of turd polishing its weak storyline with flashy special effects.
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Instead of addressing the issues, they resorted to turd polishing the report to make it look like everything was fine.
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Turd polishing
Blog text (14)
Synonyms
Making something look nicer without changing how it really is
Making a car or machine stronger and faster
Antonyms
How Deceptive
577
4.0
- Offensive
12
6.0
- Literature
145
7.5
95
4.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'turd' (a worthless thing/person) with 'polish' (to improve or make shiny) in a straightforward metaphor: attempting to make something bad look better. This compositional logic is easily inferable by learners who know both constituents (though the term is slang/vulgar), so a B1 learner familiar with the words would likely understand the intended meaning.
Etymology
The phrase turd polishing comes from the picture of someone trying to shine a turd by polishing it, which is pointless. So, it means 'to try to make something bad look good'.