"wash a blackamoor white" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "washes a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washing a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "wash<> a blackamoor white"
      },
      "expansion": "wash a blackamoor white (third-person singular simple present washes a blackamoor white, present participle washing a blackamoor white, simple past and past participle washed a blackamoor white)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "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": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
      ],
      "id": "en-wash_a_blackamoor_white-en-verb-6zuacATT",
      "links": [
        [
          "in vain",
          "in vain"
        ],
        [
          "present",
          "present"
        ],
        [
          "whitewash",
          "whitewash"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, dated, offensive) To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "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"
        },
        {
          "word": "wash blackamoors white"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "idiomatic",
        "offensive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "wash a blackamoor white"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "washes a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washing a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed a blackamoor white",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "wash<> a blackamoor white"
      },
      "expansion": "wash a blackamoor white (third-person singular simple present washes a blackamoor white, present participle washing a blackamoor white, simple past and past participle washed a blackamoor white)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "put lipstick on a pig"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English dated terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English offensive terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs"
      ],
      "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": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "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": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "in vain",
          "in vain"
        ],
        [
          "present",
          "present"
        ],
        [
          "whitewash",
          "whitewash"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, dated, offensive) To labour in vain, especially so as to present something as better than it really is; to whitewash."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "wash a negro white"
        },
        {
          "english": "very offensive",
          "word": "wash a nigger white"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "idiomatic",
        "offensive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "wash the blackamoor white"
    },
    {
      "word": "wash blackamoors white"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wash a blackamoor white"
}