Meaning
To reveal one's real character, opinions or intentions, usually after a stretch of concealment, politeness or mistaken good impression - and almost always for the worse: the phrase typically accompanies exposure of bad faith, hostility or treachery. Colors are flags: the idiom pictures a ship dropping a false ensign and running up the flag it truly serves. Nearly always disparaging - one shows one's true colors by behaving badly, not well. Do not confuse with nail one's colors to the mast, in this same batch. A bare show-your-true-colors variant exists on an earlier entry of this site; the present headword stands as its own record. Regional use: All major English varieties; US colors, UK colours.
Origin
The mechanism is genuine naval practice: colors meant a ship's flag or ensign, and ships approached under false or borrowed flags - Wikipedia's False flag article notes the ruse was initially used by pirates and privateers and was later accepted in naval warfare provided the true flag was raised before attacking. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms dates the fixed idiom to the late 1700s, alluding to the antonym false colors, sailing under a flag other than one's own. Figurative antecedents run earlier: Shakespeare's 2 Henry IV asks how to see Falstaff in his true colours (First Folio, 1623), Ammer quotes Dekker of about 1632 on cosmetics - false colours last after the true be dead - and Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop has the line in chapter 65, verified on Wikisource. Debunked: the Phrase Finder has no article on the phrase (its true-colours URL is 404), and retellings pinning the origin specifically on pirates hoisting the black flag at the last minute over-narrow the record - false colors were standard warship practice too.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- in one's true colors
- one's true colors show
- reveal one's true colors
Usage Examples
- He played the friendly neighbor for a year, then showed his true colors in the dispute over the fence.
- The senator showed her true colors when she voted against the bill she had campaigned on.
- Pressure reveals character; wait long enough and people show their true colors.