Word.ws English Dictionary

showed one's true colors

showed one's true colors is the past participle of show one's true colors.

showed one's true colors is the simple past 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.

Questions about showed one's true colors

What is showed one's true colors the past participle of?
Showed one's true colors is the past participle of show one's true colors.

Words near showed one's true colors in the dictionary

  1. showed one's cards
  2. showed one's claws
  3. showed one's hand
  4. showed one's stuff
  5. showed one's teeth
  6. showed one's true colors
  7. showed one's true stripes
  8. showed one's work
  9. showed oneself
  10. showed out
  11. showed round

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: showed one's true colors (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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