unflatter

English

Etymology

un- +‎ flatter

Verb

unflatter (third-person singular simple present unflatters, present participle unflattering, simple past and past participle unflattered)

1. (transitive) To show or display in a bad light; to portray unfavorably.
   • 1918, Bernard Edward Joseph Capes, Where England Sets Her Feet: A Romance, page 229:

     Well, sith thy truth unflatters me, I will believe it truth.

   • 2008, Christopher N. Okonkwo, A Spirit of Dialogue:

     He switched promptly from the escapist fantasy of young-white-male-orientated comic books to the cauterizing realism of Richard Wright, whose fiction unflatters the United States, condemning it as dehumanizing and coercively deathly for blacks (JanMohamed 2005).

   • 2018, Marlene K. Sokolon, Travis D. Smith, Flattering the Demos: Fiction and Democratic Education, →ISBN, page 137:

     Mainstream media “unflatters” the demos and its rulers daily.