See wash a blackamoor white on Wiktionary
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"form": "washing a blackamoor white",
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{
"form": "washed a blackamoor white",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1778, John van Rymsdyk, Andreas van Rymsdyk, Museum Britannicum […], page 33:",
"text": "It is not my Intention to put myself in a Perspiration concerning any of the Hieroglyphic Emblems, or Monstrosities of the Egyptians, for it is all Labour in vain, or washing a Blackamoor white.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1786 November 29, “Invisibilis”, “To the Captain”, in Bostonian Scintillations; or, A War of Words […], published 1787, page 30:",
"text": "And universally, all Endeavours to vindicate a bad Cause, are but making it the worse. The Moral in my Last Paper was intended to caution you against attempting to wash the Blackamoor white: but you are resolved to struggle.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1874, Arthur Lionel Smith, Erasmus: The Lothian Prize Essay, 1874, page 25:",
"text": "Folly then announces herself as the bright being whose mere aspect dispels all gloom; her present purpose being a panegyric upon herself, “which, who dares say he has a better claim than I to pronounce? and is not this candour better than a rhetorician’s apish display of his power to wash a blackamoor white?[…]”",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1932 [1930], Johannes Haller, translated by Dora von Beseler, France and Germany: The History of One Thousand Years, page 262:",
"text": "Therefore it is washing a blackamoor white to describe the French pre-war policy as peaceful and defensive. It had chained itself to Russia, and as yet nobody has maintained that the latter’s policy was defensive.",
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],
"glosses": [
"To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
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"(idiomatic, dated, now offensive) To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
],
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"word": "put lipstick on a pig"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "wash a negro white"
},
{
"english": "very offensive",
"word": "wash a nigger white"
},
{
"word": "wash the blackamoor white"
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"word": "wash a blackamoor white"
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"ref": "1778, John van Rymsdyk, Andreas van Rymsdyk, Museum Britannicum […], page 33:",
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"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1786 November 29, “Invisibilis”, “To the Captain”, in Bostonian Scintillations; or, A War of Words […], published 1787, page 30:",
"text": "And universally, all Endeavours to vindicate a bad Cause, are but making it the worse. The Moral in my Last Paper was intended to caution you against attempting to wash the Blackamoor white: but you are resolved to struggle.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1874, Arthur Lionel Smith, Erasmus: The Lothian Prize Essay, 1874, page 25:",
"text": "Folly then announces herself as the bright being whose mere aspect dispels all gloom; her present purpose being a panegyric upon herself, “which, who dares say he has a better claim than I to pronounce? and is not this candour better than a rhetorician’s apish display of his power to wash a blackamoor white?[…]”",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "1932 [1930], Johannes Haller, translated by Dora von Beseler, France and Germany: The History of One Thousand Years, page 262:",
"text": "Therefore it is washing a blackamoor white to describe the French pre-war policy as peaceful and defensive. It had chained itself to Russia, and as yet nobody has maintained that the latter’s policy was defensive.",
"type": "quote"
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],
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"To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
],
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"(idiomatic, dated, now offensive) To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
],
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"word": "wash a negro white"
},
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}
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"word": "wash the blackamoor white"
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],
"word": "wash a blackamoor white"
}
Download raw JSONL data for wash a blackamoor white meaning in All languages combined (3.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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