View synonyms for dirty linen

dirty linen

noun

personal or private matters that could cause embarrassment if made public:
You didn't have to air our dirty linen to all your friends!

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First recorded in 1945–50

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He moves her with no more concern for her condition than if she were a bag of dirty linen left behind by housekeeping.

“Better to wash dirty linen in public than have it grow mildew in a dark cupboard,” a party insider told The Daily Beast.

Another high-profile Lib Dem caused outcry by complaining that “the party was washing its dirty linen in public.”

He spoke never a word during that time; his jaw being bound up roughly in dirty linen.

When they had gone a little way, they came to a brook where they found an old woman washing dirty linen.

In his presence the dirty linen of two millions of people is washed en famille.

She lets them drop on the ground, between the boards of floors, or old furniture, and among dirty linen and rubbish.

One of my first tasks in the morning was the collecting and classification of my ward's dirty linen.

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