🦜 Brightly colored 🎨 Covered with paint 😐 Not genuine 💄 With makeup

painted

3.5

Wearing thick, obvious makeup

adjective
/ˈpeɪntɪd/

Archaic

: maquillado

So you get this sense of her really being a painted lady.

So you get this sense of her really being a painted lady.

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Examples

With her bright red lipstick and heavy eyeliner, she looked like a painted doll at the party.
The actress stepped onto the stage, her face painted for maximum effect under the spotlight.
But I'm definitely painted as this villain like character.
So here she is, the Countess in all of her resplendent glory, beautifully painted in gorgeous clothing.
For Halloween, she decided to go all out and arrived painted like a glamorous movie star.

Synonyms

rouged

vspainted

1 7.2

Having red makeup on the cheeks or lips

applies makeup more broadly and often in a conspicuous or excessive way

Antonyms

natural

∞ 1.0

Not made or changed by people, coming from nature like sunlight

unpainted

1 3.7

A face with no makeup showing a natural look

Idioms

as black as one is painted

Archaic

8.7

Not as bad or evil as people say

not as black as one is painted

Informal

8.9

Less bad than people often say

Compounds

painted turtle

1 5.1

A freshwater turtle with bright yellow and red marks on its shell and skin

painted beauty

9.7

A North American butterfly with dark brown wings and white and orange spots

painted sandgrouse

Indian

9.5

A bird with bright patterned feathers that lives in dry parts of India

painted terrapin

9.5

A freshwater turtle with bright yellow and red markings on its shell and head

painted tongue

9.9

A small garden plant with bright, soft, trumpet-shaped flowers often yellow or purple

painted tortoise

7.5

A freshwater turtle with bright yellow and red markings on its shell and skin

painted-leaf begonia

8.4

A plant grown indoors with colorful patterned leaves for decoration

painted cup

9.6

A wild plant with bright red or orange flower parts that look like a brush

painted daisy

Indian

7.4

A garden plant from Asia with divided scented leaves and white, pink, or purple flowers that keeps insects away

Painted Desert

6.8

A desert on a high plateau in northeastern Arizona with colorful layered rocks

painted greenling

9.9

A small fish that lives near the coast and has a light body with dark bands

painted Jezebel

Slur

9.9

A woman who wears heavy makeup and dresses to attract sexual attention

painted leaf

8.3

A tropical plant with bright red leaves and poisonous milky sap

painted nettle

8.1

A tropical plant with bright, colorful leaves grown for gardens or pots

How Made-Up

overdone

3.9

painted

Archaic

3.5

natural

∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

painted positive

Morphology

painted = paint (semi-transparent) = paint + ed

Figurative extension from literal application of paint to denote makeup; learners can often infer the meaning but it is metaphorical.

Etymology

Painted is used for someone with makeup because performers long ago used real paint on their faces, and paint means 'to colour'. So a painted face is one that has colour added by makeup.