polite

Debretts, an etiquette consultancy, says a good automatic reply should be polite and concise, give a specific return date, and provide another point of contact if appropriate.

From BBC ● Aug. 17, 2026

His tone remained polite, but he was panicking.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

Some will say yes enthusiastically, and others will say yes because they’re being polite.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

He leads from behind, they say, which is a polite way of saying he lets the ball and the trophies do the talking.

From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026

Hannie hands him her papers and after a cursory inspection he returns them to her with a polite bow.

From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler

An 18-year-old woman said ghosting was “a little bit politer way to reject someone than to directly say, ‘I do not want to chat with you.’

From Washington Post ● Jul. 25, 2022

She makes unreasonable public demands, he apologizes for her, and then he not-so-subtly reiterates those demands in a slightly politer tone.

From Slate ● May 9, 2019

"This is a politer was of saying 'hysteria,'" Traister tweeted.

From Salon ● Sep. 6, 2018

She admires various classical and modern dancers and choreographers and works, but her own dancers enact a brash and pitiless system of movement that disdains and subverts politer forms.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 22, 2015

Although Harry watched his two friends more closely over the next few days, Ron and Hermione did not seem any different except that they were a little politer to each other than usual.

From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling

Ebert, also 39, is the politest, a kind force who, 17 years later, remains the new guy after Johnson and Knobbe formed the band a year before.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2026

“The politest way is to enlist the aid of the flight attendants,” says Jodi RR Smith, an etiquette consultant.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024

I’ll say one thing for “Knock at the Cabin”: M. Night Shyamalan may have made the politest — and the most provocative — home-invasion horror movie you’ll ever see.

From Washington Post ● Feb. 1, 2023

The journalist Stanley Booth, in his book “The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones,” about the glory and the depravity of the band’s 1969 American tour, described Watts as “the world’s politest man.”

From New York Times ● Aug. 24, 2021

“That is about the politest way you could put it.”

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver