unmask
Americanverb (used with object)
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unmasks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
unmasked,
past participle, past
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unmasking
present participle
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to strip a mask or disguise from.
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to reveal the true character of; disclose; expose.
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Military. to reveal the presence of (guns) by firing.
verb (used without object)
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unmasks,
present (3rd person singular)
-
unmasked,
past participle, past
-
unmasking
present participle
verb
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to remove (the mask or disguise) from (someone or oneself)
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to appear or cause to appear in true character
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(tr) military to make evident the presence of (weapons), either by firing or by the removal of camouflage, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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unmasksimple
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unmaskssimple
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have unmaskedperfect
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has unmaskedperfect
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am unmaskingprogressive
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are unmaskingprogressive
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is unmaskingprogressive
-
have been unmaskingperfect progressive
-
has been unmaskingperfect progressive
Past
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unmaskedsimple
-
had unmaskedperfect
-
was unmaskingprogressive
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were unmaskingprogressive
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had been unmaskingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of unmask
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The Times reporting enraged Trump, and the administration tried to unmask the paper’s sources before ultimately backing down.
From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026
She sat down with the BBC's Women's Football Weekly podcast and addressed media in a press conference that helped unmask the global superstar.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026
Then he asked Google to unmask three devices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
“Seeing the carve-out, I was immediately really surprised,” said Bridget Lavender, staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative, the nation’s leading expert on the myriad legal efforts to unmask ICE across the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2026
Whoever did this had wanted only to unmask me without my permission, to humiliate me by intentionally undermining a decision I’d made to keep some parts of me for just myself.
From "A Very Large Expanse of Sea" by Tahereh Mafi
Meghan Kobza’s “The Masquerade” unmasks the festivities of 18th-century London, where the commercial “middling sort” acquired the numbers and money to emulate the private entertainments of kings and aristocrats.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
The BBC unmasks, for the first time, how the late Nigerian televangelist TB Joshua faked the miracles that drew millions of people to his church.
From BBC ● Jan. 13, 2024
It unmasks cancer cells, allowing the immune system to identify and destroy them.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 5, 2022
What begins as a bucket list comedy featuring four old men soon unmasks itself as a heist film.
From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2020
Underneath all, however, a shrewd knowledge of human nature is betrayed, which unmasks motives and reveals the true inwardness of men and events with a humorous fidelity.
From Comic History of England by Bill Nye
Vienna police released photos of the two suspects, who were unmasked, captured on security cameras.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
The best performance in the film might be that of Jack Haven as Little Death, whom we see unmasked only briefly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Whether the medication caused it, accelerated a subclinical condition, or simply unmasked something already there is nearly impossible to determine.
From Slate ● Mar. 22, 2026
Once Egg is unmasked, we come to understand why he’s so drawn to this enormous man whose gentle spirit permeates Claffey’s faultless performance.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026
Two of the spies unmasked by Ames—Oleg Gordievsky and Sergei Bokhan—escaped with their lives.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
After federal immigration officers shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, social media users called for the unmasking of the agents responsible.
From Slate ● Jan. 28, 2026
To disrupt that message, West suggests unmasking the obvious fact that the content creators themselves are con artists selling a sham product.
From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2025
Reckzeh was a doctor at Berlin’s Charité hospital who posed as an anti-Nazi but was all too eager to play his part in the unmasking of the participants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 19, 2025
I was unmasking on set and to then portray that on camera was very new to me and difficult to navigate at times.
From BBC ● May 30, 2024
Though he still chased bandits on horseback, the work was generally less dangerous; in many cases, it involved unmasking individuals who had filed false claims for reimbursements.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
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.
