warts and all
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Including all flaws and imperfections
Literally: physical blemishes and all
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Labour retains a fatal mistrust in the only assured source of wealth which, warts and all, is the market economy.
People can now see them warts and all.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “warts and all” mean?
Including all flaws and imperfections Literally: physical blemishes and all
Is “warts and all” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.