plaster saint
noun1
Someone who makes a show of being benevolent and morally upright, often in a hypocritical way.
2
A model of correct behavior.
- We aren’t no thin red ’eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints, Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;1892, Rudyard Kipling, Tommy:
- Of course, I don’t want to make [prison] officers into plaster saints; and they themselves would not want such an absurd depiction.2017, Theodore Dalrymple, The Knife Went In: