sugarcoat

[shoo g-er-koht] /ˈʃʊg ərˌkoʊt/

verb (used with object)

to cover with sugar:

to sugarcoat a pill.

to make (something difficult or distasteful) appear more pleasant or acceptable:

There was no way to sugarcoat the bad news.

Origin of sugarcoat

1865-1870

First recorded in 1865-70; sugar + coat

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2017.
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Examples from the Web for sugarcoated

Contemporary Examples

Her advice, sugarcoated in goofy catchphrases, is delivered in the unimpeachable rhetoric of common sense.

Can Suze Orman Save America? Adam Auriemma November 9, 2013

Historical Examples

But whether I practice Yoga, Dianetics, or write the lines on a sugarcoated pill and swallow it is my trade secret.

The Fourth R George Oliver Smith
We have to write popular plays and pretty poems and sugarcoated stories.

Discourses of Keidansky Bernard G. Richards

Word Origin and History for sugarcoated

also sugar-coat, 1870, originally of medicine; figuratively, "make more palatable," from 1910. Related: Sugarcoated; sugarcoating.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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