beauty is only skin deep

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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First use appears c. 1809, although beauty is but skin-deep appears much earlier.

Proverb

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beauty is only skin deep

  1. A person's character matters more than their appearance.
    Synonym: beauty is but skin-deep
    • 1809, Francis Lathom, London, Or, Truth Without Treason, A Novel, page 2:
      "Handsome those that handsome do say I; beauty is only skin deep; it is the principle of the heart I consider.
    • 1910, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “The Girl and the Habit”, in Strictly Business[1]:
      And she graced the transition. Beauty is only skin-deep, but the nerves lie very near to the skin. Nerve—but just here will you oblige by perusing again the quotation with which this story begins?
    • 2014 September 25, Hugo Macdonald, “Could those utopian hoardings for new developments get any more nauseating?”, in The Guardian[2], →ISSN:
      Isn’t it time the marketing budgets were reapportioned to the bones and muscles of the building themselves? At present, the beauty in London’s building boom is barely skin deep.

Translations

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See also

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References

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  • Gregory Y. Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings, 1996, →ISBN, p. 21.

Further reading

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