tar with the same brush meaning: definition

tar with the same brush

verb

UK /ˈtaː wɪ‿ðə seɪm ˈbɹʌʃ/ · US /ˈtaɹ wɪ‿ðə seɪm ˈbɹʌʃ/

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.

Figuratively To characterize (someone or something) using the same undesirable attribute, especially unjustly.

The C Party have tarred themselves with the same brush as the B Party.
The merchants of London, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Birmingham, were tarred, one and all, with the same brush.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:

4 more examples

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.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:
They are both tarred with a dirty brush, and I can't have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush.1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, “Cut Adrift”, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC, 1st book (The Cup and the Lip), page 52:
Were you tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor old man to a living death?1900, E[dward] Phillips Oppenheim, chapter XLI, in A Millionaire of Yesterday, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, published 1906, →OCLC, page 308:
Susan still persisted in thinking that poets and tramps were tarred with the same brush— […]1921, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, “The Valley of Decision”, in Rilla of Ingleside, Toronto, Ont.: McClelland and Stewart, →OCLC, page 163: