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tarred with the same brush



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Idioms and Phrases

Having the same faults or bad qualities, as in He may be lazy, but if you ask me his friends are all tarred with the same brush . This term is thought to come from sheep farming, where the animals' sores were treated by brushing tar over them, and all the sheep in a flock were treated in the same way. The term was transferred to likeness in human beings in the early 1800s.
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Alonso might reasonably point out that other drivers make critical comments about rivals, do questionable things, and sound off on the radio, and are not tarred with the same brush.

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One reason that groups like the American Petroleum Institute have historically taken the lead running negative public relations campaigns is so that their members, such as BP and Shell, are not tarred with the same brush, as our interviews with industry insiders confirmed.

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But those distinctions may pass most Americans by, leaving the Biden administration tarred with the same brush as its predecessor, damaging any claim it might have had to be pursuing the moral high ground.

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"Sleaze, corruption, inadequate and self-serving. He's a lying toe rag. They're all tarred with the same brush, the sooner we have an election the better."

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The good ones get tarred with the same brush, even though the last person who wants to get in a squad car with a bad cop is a good cop.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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