To make something unpleasant sound or seem better than it really is; to sweeten with sugar coating.
Literal combination of 'sugar' and 'coat' (to cover). Originally meant the actual process of coating candy with sugar, then evolved metaphorically to mean hiding the truth.
Sugarcoating started as a real candy-making technique where they'd dip candies in sugar syrup repeatedly to build up a hard shell—then we realized lying with nice words works the same way!
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