social lubricant
A food, beverage, drug or activity that helps people feel more comfortable in social…A food, beverage, drug or activity that helps people feel more comfortable in social occasions.
Meaning
1 senses(idiomatic)A food, beverage, drug or activity that helps people feel more comfortable in social occasions.
Origin
By a metaphor in which facilitating human social interaction is portrayed as lubricating mBy a metaphor in which facilitating human social interaction is portrayed as lubricating machinery (e.g., oiling the gears, greasing the wheels); in this regard, compare also lubrication payment.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: social lubricants| Singular | social lubricant |
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| Plural | social lubricants |
regular
Word family
1 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.