Word.ws English Dictionary

show one's true colours

show one's true colours is the alternative spelling of show one's true colors.

Meaning of show one's true colors

Verb

show one's true colors (third-person singular simple present shows one's true colors, present participle showing one's true colors, simple past showed one's true colors, past participle shown one's true colors or (US also) showed one's true colors)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To reveal how one really is, as opposed to how one has been portrayed or after having been deceptively and deliberately misleading.

Forms of show one's true colours

third-person singular presentshows one's true colours
present participleshowing one's true colours
pastshowed one's true colours
past participleshown one's true colours

Questions about show one's true colours

What is show one's true colours the alternative spelling of?
Show one's true colours is the alternative spelling of show one's true colors.

Words near show one's true colours in the dictionary

  1. show one's hand
  2. show one's stripes
  3. show one's stuff
  4. show one's teeth
  5. show one's true colors
  6. show one's true colours
  7. show one's true stripes
  8. show one's work
  9. show oneself
  10. show out
  11. show pony

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: show one's true colours (page history and authors); show one's true 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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