Definition of body paint
: 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
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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
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body-painted
adjective-
- … surrounded by their usual assortment of exuberant, body-painted fans.
- —Bill Bryant, Huntsville (Alabama) Times, 3 Mar. 2012
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body painting
or less commonly body-painting noun-
- 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
