Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mealy-mouthed \Meal"y-mouthed`\, a.
Using soft words; not straightforward; plausible; affectedly
or timidly delicate of speech; speaking deviously; unwilling
to tell the truth in plain language. Opposite of frank or
blunt. ``Mealy-mouthed philanthropies.''
--Tennyson.
She was a fool to be mealy-mouthed where nature speaks
so plain.
--L'Estrange.
[1913 Webster] -- Meal"y-mouth`ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"afraid to say what one really thinks," 1570s; first element perhaps from Old English milisc "sweet," from Proto-Germanic *meduz "honey" (see mead (n.1)), which suits the sense, but if the Old English word did not survive long enough to be the source of this, perhaps the first element is from meal (n.2) on notion of the "softness" of ground flour (compare Middle English melishe (adj.) "friable, loose," used of soils).
Wiktionary
a. prone to speaking evasively, indirectly, or duplicitously; not forthright
WordNet
adj. hesitant to state facts or opinions simply and directly as from e.g. timidity or hypocrisy; "a mealymouthed politician" [syn: mealymouthed]
Usage examples of "mealy-mouthed".
Ellen Foley, wrote in a classically mealy-mouthed mea culpa to readers.
For if I were a god, I might well be bribed by blood offerings to send good luck, but a man so pinchpenny that he merely annoyed me with mealy-mouthed prayers I would stamp onthus!
Spring is always there represented as a spanker in a blue symar, very pertly exposing her budding breast, and her limbs from feet to fork, in a style that must be very offensive to the mealy-mouthed members of that shamefaced corporation, the Society for the Suppression of Vice.
Then to have a mealy-mouthed Neut give such sneering versions of the good old stories.
He put a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper that was printed since in the pamphlet "by a bystander," for behoof (as the title says) of James's "poor widow and five children.
So that's why, if they've got to be under a whip, they'd rather I held it, not you—you drooling, tear-jerking, mealy-mouthed bastards of the public welfare!