warts and all

1. Including all blemishes, faults, and shortcomings, as in Rather unwisely, they decided to buy the house, warts and all. This expression supposedly alludes to Oliver Cromwell's instruction to portrait painter Sir Peter Lely to “remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.” [First half of 1600s]

Example Sentences

Our cities remain rich places, warts and all.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

And though the book has its shortcomings, he rightly sees the movie as a kind of passkey into the history of the first half-century of Hollywood itself, warts and all.

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He was a dad who was different than mine, certainly a lot wilder, and he was someone who wasn’t afraid to show warts and all, including his addiction issues.

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Having spent nearly 50 years telling America’s stories, warts and all, Ken Burns knows better than to traffic in the reassurance business.

Read more on Salon

But receiving love for my whole self, warts and all—that was the first step toward transformation.

Read more on Slate

Related Words

• blatantly 
• brazenly 
• candidly 
• flagrantly www.thesaurus.com
• forthrightly www.thesaurus.com
• fully 
• honestly 
• plainly www.thesaurus.com
• publicly 
• readily 
• simply 
• unabashedly 
• unashamedly www.thesaurus.com
• willingly