window dressing

See synonyms for window dressing on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. the art, act, or technique of trimming the display windows of a store.

  2. misrepresentation of something, so as to give a favorable impression: The company's list of assets included a great deal of window dressing.

Origin of window dressing

1
First recorded in 1780–90

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use window dressing in a sentence

  • I realize that the question was window-dressing, but my answer is quite serious.

    The Syndic | C.M. Kornbluth
  • Perhaps those disks are only window dressing, and they can work without them.

    Storm Over Warlock | Andre Norton
  • But he was determined to run on the platform, and for him, he later said, a platform was not a window dressing.

  • On window-dressing days he was up and down the street half the morning.

    Mrs. Thompson | William Babington Maxwell
  • This present show of examining them was what he called legal window-dressing.

British Dictionary definitions for window-dressing

window-dressing

noun
  1. the ornamentation of shop windows, designed to attract customers

  2. the pleasant, showy, or false aspect of an idea, policy, etc, which is stressed to conceal the real or unpleasant nature; façade

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012