put lipstick on a pig
put lipstick on a pig verb: to superficially alter something in the hope of making it seem more appealing than it is in actuality.
Verb
put lipstick on a pig (third-person singular simple present puts lipstick on a pig, present participle putting lipstick on a pig, simple past and past participle put lipstick on a pig)
- To superficially alter something in the hope of making it seem more appealing than it is in actuality.
- Near-synonyms: polish a turd, sugarcoat the pill
- That new box is like putting lipstick on a pig. It's still the same buggy program inside.
- Synonyms:
- polish a turd, sugarcoat the pill
Synonyms of put lipstick on a pig
Forms of put lipstick on a pig
| third-person singular present | puts lipstick on a pig |
|---|---|
| present participle | putting lipstick on a pig |
| past participle | put lipstick on a pig |
| past | put lipstick on a pig |
Questions about put lipstick on a pig
- What does put lipstick on a pig mean?
- Put lipstick on a pig means to superficially alter something in the hope of making it seem more appealing than it is in actuality.
- What part of speech is put lipstick on a pig?
- Put lipstick on a pig is a verb.
- What is the past tense of put lipstick on a pig?
- The past tense of put lipstick on a pig is put lipstick on a pig.
Words near put lipstick on a pig in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: put lipstick on a pig (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-put lipstick on a pig.ogg.
Cite this entry: “put lipstick on a pig.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/put_lipstick_on_a_pig. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.