cover-up
/ˈkʌvər ʌp/
CommonA new tattoo placed over an existing one to hide or replace a design someone no longer wants.
A good cover-up is a skill flex. Bad cover-ups are obvious and sometimes worse than the original.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | got a cover-up over my first tattoo and you can't tell there was anything there before | The cover-up was successful and the original tattoo is completely hidden. | instagram, 2024 |
| 02 | that's not just a butterfly tattoo that is a cover-up and you can tell | The tattoo is visibly covering something else underneath and it's noticeable. | x, 2023 |
| 03 | doing a partial laser fade before the cover-up so the artist has more to work with | Lightening the old tattoo with a few laser sessions before getting a cover-up, giving the artist more flexibility. | reddit, 2024 |
| 04 | cover-up work is genuinely one of the hardest things a tattoo artist can do | Covering an existing tattoo well requires more skill than a fresh piece. | tiktok, 2024 |
Use it when
- Describing a new tattoo placed over an existing one to hide it.
- Talking about options for dealing with an unwanted tattoo.
Do not use it when
- You mean removing a tattoo with laser.Use “laser-removal” instead.
- You mean adding more tattoos around an old one without actually covering it.
Cover-up vs laser removal
cover-up
A cover-up places a new design over the old one, hiding it permanently.
VS
laser-removal
Laser removal uses light pulses to fade or erase the tattoo from the skin.
Origin and context
The available record does not yet include a verified origin summary.
- First seen
- unknown
- Confidence
- low
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/cover-upUpdated: 2026-08-29License: CC BY 4.0