First recorded in 1605–15
Anything that's skin-deep is shallow or superficial. Your skin-deep commitment to saving the environment isn't terribly serious. You may have heard the saying "beauty is only skin-deep," which means that while someone may be beautiful on the outside, their character—what's inside, and more meaningful—isn't necessarily attractive. The first attested use of skin-deep was in "A Wife," a 1613 poem by Sir Thomas Overbury: "All the carnall beauty of my wife, Is but skin-deep." Its publication infamously resulted in Overbury's murder when its subject deduced that it was about her.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Studies exploring skin-deep resilience have found evidence of a health toll in outwardly resilient young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, including higher risk of inflammation, immune cell aging, metabolic disorders, and chronic disease.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 4, 2024
A class on nonverbal communication was particularly resonant: “Posing, if we think about it on the skin-deep level, could be very shallow,” Suh says.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 10, 2022
Solidarity with the brave people of Ukraine has reminded us all what is possible when empathy is really felt, but it will be bittersweet if our solidarity is really just skin-deep.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 28, 2022
Is it a surprise, then, that for the first time in the show, the performances, under Marc Bruni’s otherwise hectic and skin-deep direction, strike real notes and admit real feeling?
From New York Times ● Nov. 10, 2021
Maybe it would just be melodrama, a skin-deep slash or two, her old theatricality; though perhaps theatrical people are not less risky, but more.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
I thought about how to ensure you know that beauty is not skin deep.
From BBC ● Mar. 21, 2025
These filaments also had earthly analogs, and Siegelman used Juno's detailed imagery to study whether this similarity to our planet's oceanic and atmospheric processes was merely skin deep.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 6, 2024
To feel better, healthier and more connected, skin deep is a good place to start.
From Washington Post ● Feb. 9, 2023
Her nose was peeling a couple of layers of skin deep.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2022
The evil was only skin deep and had not tainted the blood.
From Pastor Pastorum by Latham, Rev. Henry
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
