whitewash

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A mixture of lime and water, often with whiting, size, or glue added, that is used to whiten walls, fences, or other structures.
• noun Concealment or palliation of flaws or failures.
• noun A defeat in a game in which the loser scores no points.
• transitive verb To paint or coat with whitewash.
• transitive verb To conceal or gloss over (wrongdoing, for example).
• transitive verb Sports To defeat (an opponent) in a game in which the opponent does not score.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To cover with a white liquid composition, as with lime and water, etc.
• To make white; give a fair external appearance to; attempt to clear from imputations; attempt to restore the reputation of.
• To clear by a judicial process (an insolvent or bankrupt) of the debts he owes.
• In base-ball, etc., to beat in a game in which the opponents fail to score.
• To become coated with a white inflorescence, as some bricks.
• noun A wash or loose superficial deposit of white boulders and pebbles of quartz and sericite-schist which appears on the hillsides above the gold-bearing creeks of the Klondike and is itself auriferous. See the extract.
• noun A wash or liquid composition for whitening something.
• noun A composition of quicklime and water, or, for more careful work, of whiting, size, and water, used for whitening the plaster of walls, woodwork, etc., or as a freshening coating for any surface. It is not used for fine work.
• noun False coloring, as of character, alleged services, etc.; the covering up of wrong-doing or defects: as, the investigating committee applied a thick coat of whitewash.
• noun In base-ball and other games, a contest in which one side fails to score.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun Any wash or liquid composition for whitening something, as a wash for making the skin fair.
• noun A composition of line and water, or of whiting size, and water, or the like, used for whitening walls, ceilings, etc.; milk of lime.
• noun a glossing over or cover up (of crimes or misfeasance).
• transitive verb To apply a white liquid composition to; to whiten with whitewash.
• transitive verb To make white; to give a fair external appearance to; to clear from imputations or disgrace; hence, to clear (a bankrupt) from obligation to pay debts.
• transitive verb Colloq., U. S. In various games, to defeat (an opponent) so that he fails to score, or to reach a certain point in the game; to skunk.
• transitive verb to gloss over or cover up (crimes or misfeasance).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A lime and water mixture for painting walls and fences bright white.
• noun sports A complete victory or series of victories without suffering any losses; a clean sweep.
• verb To paint over with a lime and water mixture so as to brighten up a wall or fence.
• verb idiomatic To cover over errors or bad actions.
• verb baseball, slang, dated, late, 19th century, archaic To prevent a team from scoring any runs.
• verb acting To choose white film or television actors to portray characters that were Asian, African, or other races.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data
• verb cover with whitewash
• noun wash consisting of lime and size in water; used for whitening walls and other surfaces
• noun a specious or deceptive clearing that attempts to gloss over failings and defects
• verb cover up a misdemeanor, fault, or error
• noun a defeat in which the losing person or team fails to score