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Glite Dictionary
🧹 A cover-up person 🏆 A total winner
whitewasher

whitewasher

6.5
A person who hides bad actions or paints walls with white paint
  • noun
  • /ˈhwaɪtˌwɔʃər/
translation icon : blanqueador
  • As a whitewasher, she often downplayed the company's past issues during interviews.

Examples

  • The whitewasher was tasked with covering up the mistakes made during the renovations.

  • The contractor hired a professional whitewasher to prepare the walls before painting.

  • Looks like we could use a new whitewasher.

    Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)

Synonyms

bleacher
vswhitewasher
3 9.9

A person who makes cloth or flour white using chemicals

focuses on hiding faults or whitening surfaces rather than bleaching goods
glosser
vswhitewasher
9.2

A person who makes faults or bad news sound better

covers faults more broadly, including hiding wrongdoing or treating surfaces

Antonyms

whistleblower
324 6.2

A person who tells authorities about secret illegal acts in an organization to stop harm

How Concealing

obscurantist
  • Formal
1 9.9
whitewasher
6.5
spin doctor
  • Literature
7 7.1
apologist
34 7.9

Surface Forms

whitewasher singular
whitewashers plural

Morphology

whitewasher = whitewash (semi-transparent) = white + wash + er

The agentive formation from 'whitewash' (+er) is clear for the literal meaning (one who applies whitewash), but the figurative meaning 'one who covers up faults' requires knowledge of the idiomatic use of 'whitewash'.

Etymology

Whitewasher comes from the word whitewash (made of white and wash), which is a cheap white paint used to cover walls. Just as the paint 'covers up' dirt and old marks, a whitewasher can be someone who hides faults or someone who paints surfaces white.