trick vs whitewash

trick

noun
  • Something designed to fool or swindle. 

  • A sex act, chiefly one performed for payment; an act of prostitution. 

  • A daily period of work, especially in shift-based jobs. 

  • A term of abuse. 

  • A knot, braid, or plait of hair. 

  • A sequence in which each player plays a card and a winning play is determined. 

  • A customer or client of a prostitute. 

  • A toy; a trifle; a plaything. 

  • A single element of a magician's (or any variety entertainer's) act; a magic trick. 

  • An effective, clever or quick way of doing something. 

  • A sailor's spell of work at the helm, usually two hours long. 

  • Mischievous or annoying behavior; a prank. 

  • An entertaining difficult physical action. 

adj
  • Defective or unreliable. 

  • Involving trickery or deception. 

  • Stylish or cool. 

  • Able to perform tricks. 

verb
  • To dress; to decorate; to adorn fantastically; often followed by up, off, or out. 

  • To fool; to cause to believe something untrue; to deceive. 

  • To draw (as opposed to blazon - to describe in words). 

whitewash

noun
  • A campaign to paper over unfavorable elements. 

  • The most basic type of thickening agent, flour blended with water to make a paste. 

  • A lime and water mixture for painting walls and fences bright white. 

  • A complete victory or series of victories without suffering any losses; a clean sweep. 

verb
  • To cover over errors or bad actions. 

  • In various games, to defeat (an opponent) so that they fail to score, or to reach a certain point in the game; to skunk. 

  • To paint over with a lime and water mixture so as to brighten up a wall or fence. 

  • To make over (a person or character, a group, an event, etc) so that it is or seems more white, for example by applying makeup to a person, or by discounting the participation of people of color in an event and focusing on only white participation. 

How often have the words trick and whitewash occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )