warts and all

warts and all idiom
Including all blemishes, faults, and shortcomings, as in Rather unwisely, they decided to buy the house, warts and all. This expression supposedly alludes to Oliver Cromwell's instruction to portrait painter Sir Peter Lely to “remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.” [First half of 1600s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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