false colors

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Related to false colors: pseudocoloring

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false colors

noun

A deceptive outward appearance:

cloak, color, coloring, cover, disguise, disguisement, façade, face, front, gloss, guise, mask, masquerade, pretense, pretext, semblance, show, veil, veneer, window-dressing.

Slang: put-on.

References in classic literature ?

Otherwise we shall be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.

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"I have sailed under false colors." I felt now as if I must tell her that I had given her an invented name, on account of my fear that her aunt would have heard of me and would refuse to take me in.

View in context

I saw, in the glass, my skin take a false fairness, my cheeks a false color, my eyes a false brightness--and I never shrank from it.

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Her heart beat fast; a burning heat glowed in her as she thought of her false hair, her false color, her false dress, and saw the dear familiar face coming nearer and nearer.