the.com/cover up
The truth's best disguise, undone by the clumsy effort to hide it.
means To deliberately conceal a crime, mistake, or embarrassing fact from public knowledge — or, more literally, to place something over an object to hide or protect it.
from A plain English compound of "cover" and "up." "Cover" came through Old French "covrir" from Latin "cooperire" — "co-" (together) plus "operire" (to close, to shut) — so the root sense is literally shutting something away. The figurative "cover up" meaning to suppress scandal grew naturally from the physical act of laying a cloth over what you'd rather not be seen, and hardened into a fixed noun ("a cover-up") in the 20th century, when political and corporate concealment gave the phrase steady employment.
- watergate origin
- The break-in was survivable; the cover up sank a president
- streisand effect
- Hiding something often makes everyone notice it
- body language
- Concealment leaks through tells liars cannot fully suppress
- skin sense
- Sun-safe clothing literally counts as a cover up too
watergate scandal — nixon administration's attempt to conceal break-in and illegal activities, 1972-1974
tuskegee syphilis study — u.s. public health service concealed untreated syphilis in african american men for 40 years, 1932-1972
catholic church abuse cover-up — decades of concealing priest sexual abuse cases across dioceses worldwide, ongoing revelations 2002-present