whitewashed
whitewashed is the simple past and past participle of whitewash.
Adjective
whitewashed (comparative more whitewashed, superlative most whitewashed)
- Painted with the temporary paint whitewash.
- Having had any controversy or potential for scandal removed, ignored or downplayed.
- Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser and still-influential MAGA voice, posed the question others were already repeating: "How does an anti–deep state administration put out something this whitewashed? This is not what people voted for."2025 July 10, Jesus Mesa, “'We've Been Played': MAGA Faces Its Own Disappointment With Trump”, in Newsweek
- "Beyond that the thinking was, 'Slavery was abolished over 150 years ago, so how is the United States still racist?' That's kind of the mind-set I grew up in. Going to a public school in a very white state, I was given a very whitewashed education."2021, Dave Zirin, The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World, The New Press, →ISBN, page 153
- Having been subjected to racial whitewashing: made to be or seem more white (Caucasian); for example, having been made to appear whiter via makeup, or by being illustrated in pictures or portrayed in films as white (despite originally or properly being nonwhite).
- Hiro's a Japanese guy, Kim's an Indian guy. The transition for the three of us, goin' from a very mixed Chicago area to the very whitewashed Northwest, was kinda weird. It took me years to kinda deal with, Is this a real city? Where are the other people?2012, Stuart Hallerman, quoted in Mark Yarm, Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge, Crown, page 59
- […] the “scandal” over actress Kerry Washington's seemingly whitewashed skin on the cover of the February 2015 InStyle Magazine, […]2015, JeffriAnne Wilder, Color Stories: Black Women and Colorism in the 21st Century: Black Women and Colorism in the 21st Century, ABC-CLIO, →ISBN, page 12
- A person of color perceived as having assimilated at the expense of their own racial or cultural identity.
- She tries to portray that she is the Japanese American woman. That she is very cultured in a Japanese way but she is not! She is very whitewashed.2016, anonymous pageant participant, in Rebecca Chiyoko King-O'Riain, Pure Beauty: Judging Race in Japanese American Beauty Pageants, U of Minnesota Press, page 86
Meaning of whitewash
Verb
whitewash (third-person singular simple present whitewashes, present participle whitewashing, simple past and past participle whitewashed)
- To paint (a building, a wall, etc.) a bright white with whitewash.
- Near-synonym: limewash (often coinstantial)
- Synonyms:
- limewash
- To distort or give a misleading account of (history, a narrative, etc.) by discounting the participation of people of colour and focusing on white people.
- If you appreciate historical accuracy and fair inclusion, don't go see this film [Stonewall (2015)]. If you don’t want to fuel the economy at another Hollywood attempt of whitewashing American history, don't give any aspect of this film a single dime or promotion.2015 August 6, Ernest Owens, “Hollywood, Don’t You Dare Whitewash Stonewall”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 16 Apr 2025
- To cast a white actor in a role for a person of colour in (a film, television programme, etc.).
- From Scarlett Johansson's heroine in the remake of the anime classic to Tilda Swinton as a Himalayan high priest in Doctor Strange, the film industry stands accused of whitewashing Asian characters and culture. Does it have a defence? [subtitle] […] Swinton replied that Dr Strange's writers were...2017 March 31, Steve Rose, “Ghost in the Shell’s whitewashing: does Hollywood have an Asian problem?”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...
- To make over (someone of colour) so that they appear more white, for example, by applying lightening makeup to their skin or digitally manipulating an image of them.
- One of Naomi Osaka's sponsors has been forced to apologise after depicting the Japanese tennis star, who is half-Haitian, with pale skin in an advertisement. […] The company said it had not intended to "whitewash" the athlete, […] The ad, which also features her compatriot Kei Nishikori, drew...2019 January 23, Justin McCurry, “Naomi Osaka sponsor apologises for ‘whitewashing’ tennis star in ad”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived...
- To cover or coat (something) with a white substance, as if with whitewash (noun sense 1); also, to light up (something) with white light.
- To clear (someone's) debts, especially through a declaration of bankruptcy by a court; also, to clear or write off (a debt).
- Meanwhile, Sam, having been formally introduced to the whitewashed gentleman and his friends, as the offspring of Mr. Weller, of the Belle Savage, was treated with marked distinction, and invited to regale himself with them in honour of the occasion—an invitation which he was by no means backward...1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers 43
Antonyms of whitewashed
Forms of whitewashed
| comparative | more whitewashed |
|---|---|
| superlative | most whitewashed |
Origin of whitewashed
From whitewash + -ed.
Questions about whitewashed
- What does whitewashed mean?
- Whitewashed means painted with the temporary paint whitewash.
- What is whitewashed the simple past and past participle of?
- Whitewashed is the simple past and past participle of whitewash.
- What part of speech is whitewashed?
- Whitewashed is an adjective.
Words near whitewashed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whitewashed (page history and authors); whitewash (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:
Cite this entry: “whitewashed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whitewashed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.