To show your true colors
Meaning: To reveal your real character at last.
Language: English
Literally: To show your true colors
Category: Daily Life
Origin: Nautical; warships once flew false flags to deceive, then raised their true colors before attacking.
More idioms — Daily Life
- To let off steam — To release pent-up emotion or stress.
- To face the music — To confront the unpleasant consequences of your actions.
- To add insult to injury — To make a bad situation worse by a further offense.
- Aus dem Häuschen sein — To be beside yourself with excitement.
- No dar pie con bola — To get everything wrong; to do nothing right.
- Capire fischi per fiaschi — To misunderstand completely.
More English idioms
- To take with a pinch of salt — To regard a claim with healthy skepticism.
- To butter someone up — To flatter someone to win their favor.
- Russian roulette — Any high-risk activity undertaken needlessly, where disaster may strike without warning.
- pull back the curtain — To expose a hidden truth or reality behind an appearance.
- present company excepted — These remarks do not apply to anyone currently present in this conversation.
- on sufferance — Tolerated reluctantly and only because one has no better choice.
From our false friends
- Sensible — Actually means 'sensitive'. For sensible/level-headed, say raisonnable.
- Librairie — Actually means 'bookshop'. A library is une bibliothèque.
- Constipado — Actually means 'having a head cold'. Estoy constipado = I have a cold.