little white lie

English

Noun

little white lie (plural little white lies)

  1. Alternative form of white lie.
    • 1876 June, Mark Twain, “The Facts Concerning The Recent Carnival Of Crime In Connecticut”, in The Atlantic‎[1]:
      What did you do then? Why, you made me say to myself, 'Ah, it would have been so much kinder and more blameless to ease him off with a little white lie, and send him away feeling that if he could not have bread, the gentle treatment was at least something to be grateful for!'
    • 2000, “Motion Picture Soundtrack”, in Kid A, performed by Radiohead:
      Stop sending letters / Letters always get burned / It's not like the movies / They fed us on little white lies
    • 2025 September 4, Madeleine Aggeler, “I stopped telling ‘little white lies’ for two weeks. This is what I learned”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      “It’s quite common for people to tell a little white lie when they’re declining invitations,” says Elaine Swann, etiquette expert and author of Elaine Swann’s Book of Modern Etiquette. Swann says people do this to avoid offense and “soften the blow”.
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