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skin-deep

/ˌˈskɪn ˌˈdip/
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Anything that's skin-deep is shallow or superficial. Your skin-deep commitment to saving the environment isn't terribly serious.

You may have heard the saying "beauty is only skin-deep," which means that while someone may be beautiful on the outside, their character—what's inside, and more meaningful—isn't necessarily attractive. The first attested use of skin-deep was in "A Wife," a 1613 poem by Sir Thomas Overbury: "All the carnall beauty of my wife, Is but skin-deep." Its publication infamously resulted in Overbury's murder when its subject deduced that it was about her.

Definitions of skin-deep
  1. adjective
    penetrating no deeper than the skin: "her beauty is only skin-deep"
    synonyms:
    superficial
    concerned with or comprehending only what is apparent or obvious; not deep or penetrating emotionally or intellectually
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