to paint a rosy picture
1
6.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
pintar un panorama optimista
- They say that the truth is the consultants essentially used the Romney campaign as a money-making scheme, forcing employees to spin false data as truth lies in order to paint a rosy picture of a successful campaign as a form of job security.
Examples
-
In his speech, the CEO painted a rosy picture of the company's progress and upcoming projects.
-
Not to paint a rosy picture of the W bank... just one aspect.
Blog text (18) -
I think it is just as misleading to paint a rosy picture as a horrific one.
Blog text (28) -
I'll not paint a rosy picture of George W. Bush's term in office.
Blog text (31) -
Your depiction paints a rosy picture of your earlier life.
Blog text (17) -
The politician often paints a rosy picture of the economy to gain support from voters.
-
Despite the challenges, the report aims to paint a rosy picture of the company's future prospects.
How Positive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to present an unrealistically optimistic or positive view' is directly derivable from combining 'paint' (to create or depict) with 'rosy' (optimistic/hopeful) and 'picture' (depiction), so a learner can infer that someone is depicting the situation in an optimistic light. This is a straightforward metaphorical extension common across languages, so an average B1 learner who knows the constituent words should be able to understand the expression.
Etymology
The idiom paint a rosy picture comes from the image of someone using paint to make a picture look soft and pink, a rosy scene, so it seems nicer than the real thing. That's why it now means 'to make something sound better than it is'.