Mealy-mouthed

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Prone to speaking evasively, indirectly, or duplicitously; not forthright.

    "The surliness with which the woodchopper speaks of his woods, handling them as indifferently as his axe, is better than the mealy-mouthed enthusiasm of the lover of nature."

Adjective
  1. 1
    hesitant to state facts or opinions simply and directly as from e.g. timidity or hypocrisy wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
ambiguousartfulcircumlocutorydeceitfulequivocalequivocating

Example

More examples

"Don't be mealy-mouthed, just say what you mean."

Etymology

Possibly from German Mehl im Maule behalten, via Martin Luther

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.