lend color to

Idioms  

1. Embellish, especially to give the appearance of truth. For example, I'm sure he lied about reaching the summit; that detailed account about losing his pack merely lent color to the story. This expression uses color in the sense of “appearance of authenticity.” [Late 1700s]

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Example Sentences

Winter bulbs followed by blazing banks of mature rhododendrons, azaleas and flowering trees in spring lend color to this decidedly green garden.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 26, 2022

Peking itself, in a move clearly designed to lend color to future charges of "aggression" by the U.S., proclaimed that henceforth the limit of its territorial waters would be not three but twelve miles.

From Time Magazine Archive

In my own State to give any countenance to such a movement would tend to compromise me and lend color to the misrepresentations that apparently are being made in other States.

From Time Magazine Archive

In this unexciting campaign, it is the junior partners rather than the presidential candidates who lend color to the proceedings.

From Time Magazine Archive

Not that he has said a word that would lend color to this belief, for, on the contrary, it was he who expressed his views freely as originator of the drastic plan.

From The Transgressors Story of a Great Sin by Adams, Francis A.