Pinkwash
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To cover in a coat of pink paint. transitive
"[…] I see, twenty yards away, workmen pinkwashing the newly laid, badly stained, cheap-looking brick cladding of a newly built apartment house called — well, something ridiculous: Nepal, let's say."
- 2 To promote consumer goods and services using support of breast cancer-related charities. transitive
"They see such corporate involvement as exploitation, making profits on the backs of ill women. […] They claim these campaigns trivialize the disease, "pinkwashing" its real nature."
- 3 To tout the gay-friendliness of something in an attempt to downplay or soften aspects of it considered negative. transitive
"Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations."
Example
More examples"[…] I see, twenty yards away, workmen pinkwashing the newly laid, badly stained, cheap-looking brick cladding of a newly built apartment house called — well, something ridiculous: Nepal, let's say."
Etymology
From pink + -wash.
Related phrases
More for "pinkwash"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.