Meaning

simple past and past participle of whitewash.

Definitions by Sense

1. simple past and past participle of whitewash
2. Painted with the temporary paint whitewash.
3. Having had any controversy or potential for scandal removed, ignored or downplayed.
4. 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).
5. (by extension, derogatory) A person of color perceived as having assimilated at the expense of their own racial or cultural identity.

Example Sentences

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."

"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."

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?

[…] the “scandal” over actress Kerry Washington's seemingly whitewashed skin on the cover of the February 2015 InStyle Magazine, […]

By casting Paulson in this role while continuing to describe her characters in this way, the show applies racist speech to a whitewashed body, thereby appropriating the history but erasing the bodies of Chang and Eng. This whitewashing ignores the [...] racism [...] that inform[s] both Chang and Eng's story […]

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.

Word Forms

• more whitewashed
• most whitewashed

Synonyms for white washed

Antonyms for white washed

Related Words

When Should You Use White washed?

Use white washed when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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