🗓️ Idiom: Sweeten the Deal (v)
💬 Meaning
- To make an offer more attractive or appealing.
- To add extra benefits or incentives to persuade someone to agree to a proposal.
🧠 Example Sentences
- The vendor sweetened the deal by offering free maintenance for a year.
- To close the sale, the rep sweetened the deal with a 10% discount.
- They sweetened the deal by including additional services at no extra cost.
🏛️ Origin
The idiom “sweeten the deal” comes from the idea of making something more pleasant by adding sweetness. In business, it is about improving an offer to make it more desirable. It’s use became popular in the mid-20th century.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
The company __________ by adding a signing bonus.
Answer
sweetened the deal
2. Choose the correct meaning of “sweeten the deal”:
A) To make a situation worse
B) To add benefits to make an offer more appealing
C) To end negotiations suddenly
Answer
B) To add benefits to make an offer more appealing
3. Rewrite the sentence using the idiom:
“They improved the offer to convince the client to accept it.” → Change the sentence using: sweeten the deal
Answer
They sweetened the deal to convince the client to accept it.
ℹ️ Other Useful Pages
👉 Marketing and Sales Idioms
👉 Business English Idioms List
👉 Student Space
👉 Tutor Toolkit
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