unvarnished truth, the

The total, unadulterated truth; frank honesty not diluted or softened in any way by omission or embellishment. Your job is to give me the unvarnished truth about the company's performance each quarter, no matter how bleak it may be. Sarah isn't afraid to speak the unvarnished truth about what she thinks of anyone or anything.

The plain facts without embellishment, as in Let's just have the unvarnished truth about the sale. This idiom was first recorded in 1883, although unvarnished had been used to describe a direct statement since Shakespeare's time.

The straight facts. This expression has antecedents in the writings of Aeschylus (“Simple are the words of truth”), Euripides (“Plain and unvarnished are the words of truth”), and other ancient writers. Shakespeare came close to the modern wording: “In speaking for myself . . . I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver of my whole course of love” (Othello, 1.3). See also tell it like it is.