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Glite Dictionary
turd polishing

turd polishing

1 9.9
Trying to make something bad look better without fixing its real problems
  • 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  • The company's new marketing strategy is just turd polishing, making their outdated product seem fresh and innovative.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.

Examples

  • Many critics accused the film of turd polishing its weak storyline with flashy special effects.

  • Instead of addressing the issues, they resorted to turd polishing the report to make it look like everything was fine.

  • Turd polishing

    Blog text (14)

Synonyms

souping
vsturd polishing
  • Jargon
2 8.4

Making a car or machine stronger and faster

focuses on making poor things seem better instead of truly improving them
prettification
vsturd polishing
1 7.4

Making something look nicer without changing how it really is

is about hiding poor quality rather than creating real improvement

Antonyms

improvement
562 1.1

A change that makes something better

How Deceptive

fraud
607 4.0
turd polishing
  • Offensive
1 9.9
to whitewash
12 6.0
spin
  • Literature
149 7.5
cosmetic
89 4.4

Surface Forms

turd polishing singular
turd polishings plural

Morphology

turd + polish

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'.