beating around the bush
Speaking without clarity
Beating around the bush is avoiding the main point through indirect or evasive talk.
Someone who beats around the bush delays getting to what matters, often out of reluctance to say something difficult: Stop beating around the bush and tell me what happened.
The image comes from hunting, where beaters would flush game from bushes rather than going straight in.
- sidestepEvade by moving aside
- wafflingEvasive, indecisive speech
- playing coyAffecting reluctant shyness
- circumlocutionIndirect, wordy expression
- indirectNot straight or immediate
stalling · sugarcoating · hedging · hemming and hawing · vagueness · prevaricating · equivocation · talking in circles · euphemism · obfuscation · pussyfooting · tiptoeing around · meandering · digressions · burying the lede · soft-pedaling · qualifiers · tactfulness
- evasionsno comment, dodge, deflection, hedging, equivocation
- evasive languageequivocation, hedging, vagueness, circumlocution, doublespeak
- indirectnesscircumlocution, euphemism, hedging, hint, hinting
- talkativenesstalkativeness, verbosity, wordiness, garrulity, loquacity
beating around the bushgetting to the point
Stating the essence plainly
cutting to the chase · telling it like it is · straight talk · speaking frankly · spelling it out
beating around the bushspeaking one's mind
Expressing honest opinions openly
calling a spade a spade · coming clean · spilling the beans · baring one's soul
beating around the bushgetting to the point
Stating the essence plainly
cutting to the chase · brevity · terseness · pithiness · economy of words
beaten, beating, bushes, beats, beater, unbeatable, bushed, beatific, beaters