Picture someone about to say something, and in the half-second before they speak they smooth the edges off it: they add please, they wait for their turn, they say sorry as they squeeze past. Polite is that smoothing — the small adjustments a person makes so the other person is not bumped. Two things sit inside the word from the start: care about how the other person feels, and knowing the local rules for showing it. Most of the time those two travel together; the rest of the word's meanings appear when they come apart.
From the picture
只剩形式那一面
核心畫面裡的兩樣東西——真的在意，跟照場合的規矩來——一旦分開，只留下後面那一半，polite 就變成在描述「形式上做到了」。它不再保證裡面有多少真心，而是在指那層做得很對的外殼。
socially correct, not sincere · adjective · A2
Used about conversation, remarks, or interest that people show because it is socially correct, even when they may not fully mean it.
客套的；表面客氣的
well-mannered · adjective · A2
Behaving or speaking in a careful, kind way that fits the social situation and shows you care about other people's feelings.
有禮貌的
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Politename
A surname.
politeadj/pəˈlaɪt/
Well-mannered, civilized.
obsoleteSmooth, polished, burnished.
politeverb/pəˈlaɪt/
obsoleteTo polish; to refine; to render polite.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。