Dictionary

skin-deep en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Meanings

1. (figuratively, not-comparable) Shallow, superficial.
   • Dead enough; to live thenceforth a galvanic life of mere Stump-Oratory; screeching and gibbering, words without wisdom, without veracity, without conviction more than skin-deep. 1850 May 1, Thomas Carlyle, “No. V. Stump-Orator.”, in Latter-Day Pamphlets, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 180:
   • Britain's claims to being a functioning democracy are only skin deep [title] 2020 June 3, George Monbiot, “Britain's claims to being a functioning democracy are only skin deep”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • She was wantonly aesthetic; but she was an excellent creature, kind and good natured; and her affectations were but skin-deep. 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLVII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
   • What news stories like this really show is that the rampant technology fetishism, which runs like e-wildfire through our i-society, is really only skin-deep. 2010 July 24, Guy Dammann, “Technology fetishism is skin deep”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • The painter smiled at once, his bright, skin-deep smile. 1919 October, John Galsworthy, chapter 1, in Saint’s Progress, London: William Heinemann, published December 1919, →OCLC, part III, page 242:
   • Chris Huhne, environment spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said Mr Blair's remarks showed he was "delusional" on climate change and that his environmentalism was only "skin deep". 2007 January 10, The Independent:
   • Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature’s good-humour was only skin-deep after all. 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC:
   • “He calls himself a white man,” answered the Master-Attendant scornfully; “but if so, it’s just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face too.” 1902, Joseph Conrad, “The End of the Tether”, in Youth: A Narrative: And Two Other Stories, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and sons, →OCLC:
   • Olga de Coude is very beautiful; that, and the dim light and the seductive surroundings, and the appeal of the defenseless for protection, might have been resisted by a more civilized man, but my civilization is not even skin deep—it does not go deeper than my clothes. 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 49:

Forms

Antonyms

bone-deep

Relateds

beauty is only skin deep

Translations (8)

mi kirimoko (superficial) · de oberflächlich (superficial) · cmn 膚淺 /肤浅 (superficial) · nl oppervlakkig (superficial) · bg повърхностен (superficial) · vi bề ngoài (superficial) · es superficial (superficial) · bg недълбок (superficial)