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Draw A Veil Over

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

To avoid discussing or remembering something painful or shameful.

Detailed Definition
A veil conceals without entirely erasing what lies behind it, making this phrase especially suited to poetic suggestion. It may describe a family’s silence, a culture’s suppressed history, or a speaker’s refusal to name an old wound. In verse, the concealed subject often becomes more powerful because absence itself forms a visible shape around every careful omission.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet may write, “Let us draw a veil over the quarrel and speak of rain”; The phrase means to conceal, soften, or stop discussing an unpleasant subject; In a poem about mourning, a veil can suggest both privacy and unresolved grief; The image may also evoke a curtain that hides truth without destroying it.
Additional Notes
To draw a veil over something is to deliberately avoid mentioning or revisiting it, usually because it is painful, embarrassing, or shameful. The expression has a formal or literary tone. It can refer to private memories, scandals, or an unpleasant period in history.
Also Known As
Draw A Veil Over Something Pass Over In Silence
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