fig leaf
4
6.7
- noun
- /fɪg liːf/
- Informal
:
tapa
- The new policy was just a fig leaf to cover up the government's failure to address climate change.
Cuba's revolution under Castro was a fig leaf hiding communism.
- Cuba's revolution under Castro was a fig leaf hiding communism.
- All of these restrictive voting laws are being justified by the fig leaf of the Big Lie.
Examples
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My natural dislike for State is making me lean towards the POTUS and State seizing upon the movie as a fig leaf.
Blog text (12) -
Citizenist analogies are nothing more than a fig leaf for bad logic based on bad premises.
Blog text (1) -
All of these restrictive voting laws are being justified by the fig leaf of the Big Lie.
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The economic arguments in favor of free markets are no more than a fig leaf for this self-serving doctrine of self-aggrandizement.
Blog text (25) -
The "Crime Bill" outlawed virtually nothing and was merely a fig leaf for anti-gun politicians.
Blog text (21) -
The so-called Consulate was more of a fig leaf for the presence of American personnel in Benghazi.
Blog text (9) -
Cuba's revolution under Castro was a fig leaf hiding communism.
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The polite drapery, the fig leaf for modesty's sake—it's a lie.
Fiction book (1997) -
Indeed, I think all of them repeated many times that if the Constitution they created ever failed and became a fig leaf for despotism and imperialism, the American people should not hesitate to take up arms and overthrow the rotten state.
Blog text (12) -
At any rate, it cannot be argued that Heraclitus had anything to do with nationalism of any kind, as the latter is, after all, a modern phenomenon; nor that GD had any genuine interest in philosophy, other than using it as a fig leaf of profundity for their otherwise thick-headed views and mysticism.
Blog text (9)
Synonyms
137
5.5
An attempt to hide a crime or scandal from the public
129
5.9
A way of acting that hides how a person really feels
9
7.1
An action or statement that hides the real reason behind something
How Concealing
Surface Forms
Morphology
fig + leaf
The compound combines 'fig' and 'leaf' where 'leaf' readily evokes covering or hiding, so a learner who knows the words could plausibly infer a literal covering function. However, the idiomatic sense of a superficial pretense to conceal embarrassment relies on cultural/biblical background and is not fully predictable from the parts alone, so full understanding is unlikely without prior exposure.
Etymology
Fig leaf used to mean a small cover for something embarrassing may come from the Bible and from art. After Adam and Eve felt ashamed they used fig leaves to hide their bodies, and artists added fig leaves to statues to hide nudity, so a 'fig leaf' came to mean a small thing people use 'to hide' or 'cover up' a problem.