bitter pill to swallow

plural bitter pills to swallow

1. figurativelySomething unpleasant that must be accepted or endured.

   Giving them amnesty would be a bitter pill for the U.S. to swallow.

   2006 June 26, Tony Karon, “Inside Iraq's 'Amnesty' Plan”, in Time, archived from the original on 03 Sep 2010

   2 more examples

   [T]o see himself dethroned, the object of her contempt, was a bitter pill to swallow.

   1886, George Gissing, chapter 10, in Demos: A Story of English Socialism

   "[W]e cast loose from the ice after a very careful inspection which left us no hope whatsoever of penetrating it. […] It was a bitter pill to swallow, but we decided to search for Winter quarters somewhere along the coast."

   1920 May 1, “Amundsen to Try Again for Pole”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: bitter pill, difficult pill to swallow, hard pill to swallow, tough pill to swallow

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bitter pill, swallow.