The 'five-second rule' is a popular polite fiction regarding the eating of food that has fallen to the floor or ground.

Upon their arrival at the inn, he had found himself maintaining the polite fiction that Mary was his cousin.

So long as we appear respectable in all ways, the polite fiction of appearance is maintained.

This, however, turns out to be a polite fiction.

He or she will scrape through with a polite fiction of a degree that will make no difference in the job market.

In scholarly usage, "polite fiction" can be traced to at least 1953.

It was a polite fiction that he helped Rhuarc and the others plan.

That is a polite fiction, imposed by gambling control laws.

Most Israeli officials, however, recognize it as a polite fiction.