skin-deep
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skin-deep (not comparable)
- (figuratively) Shallow, superficial.
- Antonym: bone-deep
- 1850 May 1, Thomas Carlyle, “No. V. Stump-Orator.”, in Latter-Day Pamphlets, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 180:
- 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.
- 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, An Inland Voyage, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC:
- 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.
- 1902, Joseph Conrad, “The End of the Tether”, in Youth: A Narrative: And Two Other Stories, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and sons, →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.”
- 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLVII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
- She was wantonly aesthetic; but she was an excellent creature, kind and good natured; and her affectations were but skin-deep.
- 1919 October, John Galsworthy, chapter 1, in Saint’s Progress, London: William Heinemann, published December 1919, →OCLC, part III, page 242:
- The painter smiled at once, his bright, skin-deep smile.
- 2007 January 10, The Independent:
- 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".
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superficial
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