Hello everyone,
I am looking into phraseological units that relate to the concept bribery. The study of the data revealed the following ones:
- buy off,
- pay off,Â
- give someone a backhander,
- give someone a sweetener/keep someone sweet,
- cash for questions,
- wet my beak,
- under the table,Â
- grease someone's palm, etc.
Does anyone know what other colourful and more expressive idioms, phrases, expressions, sayings, euphemisms are used in colloquial English to denote giving and taking bribes.Â
Thesaurus.com give several single words and a few phrases. 'Kickback' is shown as a single word, but I bet it was a phrase at one time.
So, I checked Google's Ngram Viewer. The earliest that I found was two words (in 1933).
EmmettRedd said
Thesaurus.com give several single words and a few phrases. 'Kickback' is shown as a single word, but I bet it was a phrase at one time.So, I checked Google's Ngram Viewer. The earliest that I found was two words (in 1933). Â
Between that list and asusena's original list I think you have them all covered. Payola, hush money, and protection used to be pretty common synonyms for "bribe" but I don't hear them much these days. Do you think maybe we should include "political contribution/donation" on the list? Just sayin'. 🙂
Thank you.