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used to describe an undisclosed fact about someone which, if revealed, would damage perceptions of the person. It evokes the idea of someone having had a human
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A political cartoon by cartoonist L. M. Glackens criticizing the United States government (portrayed here as
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129:(archaic) means "some fact of considerable importance that is not disclosed—something suspicious or wrong"
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The meaning and origin of the expression: A skeleton in the closet – The Phrase Finder
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Skeleton coming out of a closet, here the skeleton of
Mirabeau coming out of a
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Phrase of the week: to have a skeleton in the cupboard – One Stop
English
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or non-understood event (a mystery), may be implied by the phrase.
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of king Louis XVI of France in 1792. Caricature from 1792.
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40:excluding Chinese immigration domestically
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16:Undisclosed negative fact about someone
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204:Metaphors referring to objects
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199:Metaphors referring to people
154:The Eclectic Review, Volume 6
36:exclusion of Jews in Russia
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87:Oxford English Dictionary
63:skeleton in the cupboard
194:English-language idioms
127:Nigger in the woodpile
81:had decomposed to the
59:Skeleton in the closet
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21:Skeleton in the Closet
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121:Elephant in the room
91:Webster's Dictionary
19:For other uses, see
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97:, or significant
67:colloquial phrase
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133:October surprise
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32:Uncle Sam
115:Closeted
109:See also
209:Secrecy
95:murder
89:, and
75:corpse
38:while
79:flesh
71:idiom
65:is a
83:bone
69:and
61:or
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