Weasel word

A native of the American English expression weasel word ( also German weasel word ) means a word with vague and fuzzy meaning. In the U.S. the term by Theodore Roosevelt became known, who used it in 1916, to attack the policies of Woodrow Wilson:

"You can have universal workout or you can have voluntary training, but When You use the word voluntary to qualify the word universal, you are using a weasel word; It has sucked all the meaning out of universal. The two words flatly contradict eachother. "

"You can have a comprehensive training or voluntary training, but if you fully voluntarily restricts the word with the word, then you use a weasel word; it has the actual meaning of the word sucked out comprehensively. The two words contradict each other simply. "

According to Friedrich August von Hayek weasel words would be used as an attribute, if one must use the supplied set term, but would take him all the connotations that put their own ideological premises in question. As " the weasel - word par excellence " being the word "social ", of which no one knows what it really means in terms such as " social market economy " or " social conscience ".