Wiktionary
alt. 1 (&lit bitter pill swallow English) 2 (context idiomatic English) Something unpleasant that must be accepted or endured. n. 1 (&lit bitter pill swallow English) 2 (context idiomatic English) Something unpleasant that must be accepted or endured.
Usage examples of "bitter pill to swallow".
The realization that one's life and one's lifework has been a failure is a bitter pill to swallow.
I know it's a bitter pill to swallow, but you can't change the facts.
Barquentine, also, was a bitter pill to swallow, but Flay realized at once the traditional rightness and integrity of the old man.
It was a bitter pill to swallow, especially in view of the desperate danger to Marie and the Count, but it was not a matter of choosing the best of possible alternatives.
I knew it was a bitter pill to swallow, that the twelve-year-old Rafe could be part of this and he could not, and I was intensely sorry for him, but the first necessity of matrix work was to know and accept for all time your own limitations.