Word.ws English Dictionary

sailed under false colors

sailed under false colors is the simple past and past participle of sail under false colors.

Meaning of sail under false colors

Verb

sail under false colors (third-person singular simple present sails under false colors, present participle sailing under false colors, simple past and past participle sailed under false colors)

  1. (idiomatic, obsolete) To deceive or intentionally mystify.
    • They were all not exactly sailing under false colours, but deceiving themselves as to their motives—and one another, to a lesser degree, by their actions.1869, Annie Thomas, “Miss Vargrave Nearly Lands a Fish”, in False Colours. […], volume II, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 251

Questions about sailed under false colors

What is sailed under false colors the simple past and past participle of?
Sailed under false colors is the simple past and past participle of sail under false colors.

Words near sailed under false colors in the dictionary

  1. saile
  2. sailed
  3. sailed close to the wind
  4. sailed the Red Sea
  5. sailed through
  6. sailed under false colors
  7. sailer
  8. sailers
  9. sailes
  10. Sailesh
  11. sailest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sailed under false colors (page history and authors); sail under false colors (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.

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