pleasantries
noun1
A short polite conversation before a serious conversation.
- exchanging pleasantries
2
For bad language as a euphemism.
- Signora Caterina thought it could. Weak, yet cunning—vain, yet conscious of having outlived her attractions—with one of those tempers which we conceive to be the true interpretation of the old fairy tale, where out of the mouth of the party proceeded snakes, toads, locusts, and other pleasantries.1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 221:
- Related terms
- formalities