Word.ws English Dictionary

warts and all

warts and all adjective: of or pertaining to a description or other depiction which reveals the full range of characteristics of a person or thing, including the shortcomings and imperfections.

Adjective

warts and all (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic, informal, often hyphenated) Of or pertaining to a description or other depiction which reveals the full range of characteristics of a person or thing, including the shortcomings and imperfections.
    • Biographer Jones, for all his hero worship, belongs to the warts-and-all school, and notes some strange quirks in Freud's character.1957 October 14, “The Last Days of Freud”, in Time
    • More than a quarter of a century after the fraught events that followed the privatisation of the railway, Corbett has provided a warts and all analysis of what led to the spate of rail disasters in the aftermath of the break-up of British Rail, and (ultimately) to the demise of the company.2026 March 4, Christian Wolmar, “Railtrack: what really happened”, in RAIL, number 1056, page 50

Adverb

warts and all (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) In a manner which does not conceal shortcomings or imperfections.
    • The new crop of reality shows brings us that much closer to the contestants, warts and all.2003 January 14, Donna Freydkin, “Young and voyeuristic”, in USA Today
    • "We are very open and publish everything we investigate in detailed reports - warts and all," adds French.2021 December 29, Paul Stephen, “Rail's accident investigators”, in RAIL, number 947, page 33

Forms of warts and all

alternative formwarts-and-all

Origin of warts and all

In 1653, an artist, Samuel Cooper, was asked to paint Oliver Cromwell’s portrait. Cromwell preferred the portrait to be shown with “pimples, warts and everything” (i.e., to include any defects and imperfections). Over time, this phrase has come to be shortened to “warts and all”.

Questions about warts and all

What does warts and all mean?
Warts and all means of or pertaining to a description or other depiction which reveals the full range of characteristics of a person or thing, including the shortcomings and imperfections.
What part of speech is warts and all?
Warts and all can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near warts and all in the dictionary

  1. Warton
  2. Wartook
  3. wartorn
  4. wartpox
  5. warts
  6. warts and all
  7. warts-and-all
  8. wartsome
  9. wartweed
  10. wartweeds
  11. wartwort

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: warts and all (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-warts and all.ogg.

Cite this entry: “warts and all.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/warts_and_all. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.