# tar with the same brush
## English
### Etymology

From tar (“to coat with tar; to besmirch”), in the sense of two or more persons or things being soiled with the same thing.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈtaː wɪ‿ðə seɪm ˈbɹʌʃ/
* (General American) IPA: /ˈtaɹ wɪ‿ðə seɪm ˈbɹʌʃ/
* Audio (General Australian):(file)
* Rhymes: -ʌʃ

### Verb

tar with the same brush (third-person singular simple present tars with the same brush, present participle tarring with the same brush, simple past and past participle tarred with the same brush)
* (transitive, figuratively) To characterize (someone or something) using the same undesirable attribute, especially unjustly.
    Synonyms: paint with the same brush, (dated) tar with the same stick
    The C Party have tarred themselves with the same brush as the B Party.
** 1837 June 10, “Debates and Proceedings in Parliament. [The Currency.]”, in The Spectator: A Weekly Journal of News, Politics, Literature, and Science, volume X, number 467, London: Joseph Clayton, […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 534, column 1:The merchants of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Birmingham, were tarred, one and all, with the same brush.
** 1841, Alain René Le Sage [i.e., Alain-René Lesage], “The Subject of which is Inexhaustible”, in Joseph Thomas, transl., Asmodeus; or, The Devil on Two Sticks. […], London: Joseph Thomas, […], →OCLC, page 200:We may mark that gentleman with black, at all events, said Leandro Perez. We may indeed, replied the Devil; and you may tar his nearest neighbour with the same brush, while you are about it—an original of an auditor, who, because he keeps a carriage, blushes whenever he is obliged to put his foot into a public vehicle.
** 1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, “Cut Adrift”, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC, book the first (The Cup and the Lip), page 52:They are both tarred with a dirty brush, and I can't have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush.
** 1900, E[dward] Phillips Oppenheim, chapter XLI, in A Millionaire of Yesterday, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, published 1906, →OCLC, page 308:Were you tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor old man to a living death?
** 1921, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “The Valley of Decision”, in Rilla of Ingleside, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →OCLC, page 163:Susan still persisted in thinking that poets and tramps were tarred with the same brush— […]
** 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 13: Nausicaa]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 356:Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush. Wiping pens in their stockings.
** 1964 November, D[aniel] S[tephen] Halacy Jr., “Fire Danger: Extreme”, in Harry A. Harchar, editor, Boys’ Life: The Magazine for All Boys, volume LIV, number 11, New Brunswick, N.J.: Boy Scouts of America, →OCLC, part I, page 57, column 1:I'd say Marvin is still eating his heart out over what happened. You work for Sanders Aero and so that tars you with the same brush.
** 1988 April 21, Olin B. King, “Statement of Olin B. King, Chairman of the Board, SCI Systems, Inc.”, in U.S. Economic Relations with the Asian Newly Industrialized Countries: Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Finance, Trade and Monetary Policy of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, House of Representatives, One-hundredth Congress, Second Session […] (Serial No. 100-57), Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 17:There are marked differences between them, and it is terribly important that we as a country not tar all of these people with the same brush. They are very, very much different kinds of countries.
** 2008 June 6, Terry Sweetman, “Kevin Rudd’s public service demands nothing new”, in The Courier-Mail‎, Brisbane, Qld.: Queensland Newspapers, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 June 2013:And few would distinguish between state and federal public servants, tarring them with the same brush of disdain.
** 2013, Kim Wheatley, “Coleridge, Jeffrey, and the Edinburgh: Romanticizing ‘Personalities’”, in Romantic Feuds: Transcending the “Age of Personality”, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2016, →ISBN, page 63:[Samuel Taylor] Coleridge's third allegation emphasizes the idea of tarring with the same brush: [Francis] Jeffrey, he alleges, is guilty of lumping Coleridge with his friends as well as the dramatist Joanna Baillie: […]

#### See also

* pigeonhole

### Further reading

* “tarred with the same stick (or brush)” under “tar, v.$^1$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022.
* “tar people with the same brush, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
* “tar someone with the same brush”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
* “be/get tarred with the same brush” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.