damage control

American  

noun

1. a department or group, as aboard a naval vessel, responsible for taking action to control damage caused by fire, collision, etc.

2. any efforts, as by a company, to curtail losses, counteract unfavorable publicity, etc.

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damage control Idioms  

1. Measures to minimize or curtail loss or harm. For example, As soon as they discovered the leak to the press, the senator's office worked night and day on damage control. Used literally since the 1950s, specifically for limiting the effect of an accident on a ship, this term began to be used figuratively in the 1970s.

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Other Word Forms

• damage-control adjective

Example Sentences

The fire prompted a major damage control response, with sailors working for hours to contain the blaze and ensure it had not spread to other parts of the ship, officials said.

From BBC • Mar. 18, 2026

Amodei apologized for the comment and said Anthropic would go to court to fight the supply-chain risk designation, but he will likely have to do more damage control to co-exist with the administration moving forward.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026

But by the time he got there, his monologue had been transformed from a pure celebration of his overnight success into an exercise in damage control.

From Salon • Mar. 6, 2026

Such damage control could revive their stocks after this year’s brutal selloff, driven by fears that AI would render software and services providers irrelevant.

From Barron's • Feb. 19, 2026

He dug out his iPad to do some damage control.

From "Millionaires for the Month" by Stacey McAnulty