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

See Examples For:

damage control

"It was a hush email," and "an effort to damage control," says one worker - while another says it made her "furious".

From BBC ● May 27, 2026

Is there any damage control that can be done?

From Slate ● May 7, 2026

In the days after OpenAI signed its contract with the Pentagon, the company went into damage control mode.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 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

Visiting him again was a risk, but I needed to do some damage control.

From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos