damn with faint praise

present singular third person damns with faint praise · participle present damning with faint praise · participle past damned with faint praise · past damned with faint praise

1. idiomaticTo provide praise that is minimal or inconsequential, implying that such praise is the best that could be said.

   Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering teach the rest to sneer.

   1735, Alexander Pope, Epistle to Doctor Arbuthnot

   3 more examples

   The patronizing manner in which the hero of Nashville is damned with faint praise would amuse were it not so exasperating.

   1887, Donn Piatt, Memories of the Men who Saved the Union, page 296

   Four of them returned it with a cold, printed note of rejection; one of them “damned with faint praise.” They wrote that “Our readers report that they find some merit in your story, but not enough to warrant its acceptance.”

   1917, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “The Alpine Path: The Story Of My Career”, in Everywoman's World

   And then, finally, when W. could avoid it no longer, he mentioned Vice, damning with faint praise: “Dick Cheney’s advice was consistent and strong.”

   2010 November 16, Maureen Dowd, “The Way They Were”, in New York Times, retrieved 06 Oct 2013