WHITE LIE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of White lie

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/waɪt laɪ/ Listen

White lie

noun

An unimportant lie (especially one told to be tactful or polite).

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Etymology of 'White lie'

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"White lie" Quotes from Famous Books

... Hollabrnn. I bring the flags captured at Breganz to the Emperor. The danger of a white lie. ...

— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... when I ring the bell; then all I have for it is to run my chance. Perhaps he may never recollect what passed about your debts, for the dear good old soul has not the best memory in the world; and if he should obstinately remember, why, after all, it's only a bit of false delicacy, and a white lie for a friend and a son, ...

— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... Galusha Bangs had told for many, many years, one of the very few he had ever told. It was a very white lie and not told with deliberation or malice aforethought. But, as so often happens, it was destined to be the father of a pestilential pack which were ...

— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... "'Tis a white lie, child," she chided. "You've come, Dannie, poor lad! t' be a white liar. 'Tis a woful state—an' a parlous thing. For, child, if you ...

— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan

... that a 'white lie,'" he said; "but it is a peart lad, and the air with which he told it is worth a cool hundred! Going at four ...

— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend