body paint

noun

: paint applied to a person's body

Her new outfit, a leopard-skin pants suit, seemed as skintight as Superman's blue-and-red ensemble: every midriff curve curved, every leg muscle flexed … . After a few turns, some observers noticed that the spots were not painted on fabric but skin. Her suit was body paint.

—Matthew Crowley, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 19 Mar. 1997

Aborigines in white body paint danced and sang traditional songs in Australia's national Parliament on Tuesday in a historic ceremony many hoped would mark a new era of race relations in the country.

—Rod McGuirk, Associated Press, 12 Feb. 2008

body-paint transitive verb

body-painted; body-painting; body-paints

Halfway through the first quarter, high up in the stands, an undergraduate skinned off his shirt and … a young woman body-painted something unprintable about Harvard onto his shoulder blades.

—Paul Hendrickson, Washington Post, 21 Nov. 1983

body-painted adjective

… surrounded by their usual assortment of exuberant, body-painted fans.

—Bill Bryant, Huntsville (Alabama) Times, 3 Mar. 2012

body painting noun

or less commonly body-painting

They wore clothing of finely-tanned skins and adorned themselves with tattooing and body painting.

—Barbara A. Leitch, A Concise Dictionary of Indian Tribes, 1979

Word History

First Known Use

1883, in the meaning defined above

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