whitewash
pronunciation
How to pronounce whitewash in British English:
UK [ˈwaɪtwɒʃ]
How to pronounce whitewash in American English:
US [ˈwaɪtwɑʃ]
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- Noun:
- a defeat in which the losing person or team fails to score
- wash consisting of lime and size in water; used for whitening walls and other surfaces
- a specious or deceptive clearing that attempts to gloss over failings and defects
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- Verb:
- cover up a misdemeanor, fault, or error
- cover with whitewash
- exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data
Word Origin
- whitewash (v.)
- 1590s, "to wash a building surface with white liquid," from white (adj.) + wash (v.). Figurative sense of "to cover up, conceal, give a false appearance of cleanness to" is attested from 1762. Related: Whitewashed; whitewashing. The noun is recorded from 1690s; in the figurative sense from 1851. The earlier verb was whitelime (c. 1300).
Example
- 1. Please do not whitewash your inherent faults with your acquired virtues .
- 2. China and other countries have long excoriated japan for the way its textbooks whitewash the country 's history , in particular glossing over japanese war crimes .
- 3. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless , while army tea , made in a cauldron , tastes of grease and whitewash .
- 4. The classical olympics were always run by a board of nine from the local town ( elis ) , so there were no international spats , no corruption scandals , no hijacking of the games to whitewash dictators .
- 5. Researchers will need the skills exhibited by tom sawyer when he persuaded his friends it would be a joyous privilege to whitewash a fence .