"skeleton in the closet" meaning in English

See skeleton in the closet in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-skeleton in the closet.ogg [Australia] Forms: skeletons in the closet [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|skeletons in the closet}} skeleton in the closet (plural skeletons in the closet)
  1. (US, idiomatic) A shameful secret. Tags: US, idiomatic Synonyms: skeleton in the cupboard [UK]
    Sense id: en-skeleton_in_the_closet-en-noun-~njiqWy~ Categories (other): American English, English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for skeleton in the closet meaning in English (1.2kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "skeletons in the closet",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "skeletons in the closet"
      },
      "expansion": "skeleton in the closet (plural skeletons in the closet)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "American English",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A shameful secret."
      ],
      "id": "en-skeleton_in_the_closet-en-noun-~njiqWy~",
      "links": [
        [
          "shameful",
          "shameful"
        ],
        [
          "secret",
          "secret"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, idiomatic) A shameful secret."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "UK"
          ],
          "word": "skeleton in the cupboard"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-skeleton in the closet.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/34/En-au-skeleton_in_the_closet.ogg/En-au-skeleton_in_the_closet.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/En-au-skeleton_in_the_closet.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "skeleton in the closet"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "skeletons in the closet",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "skeletons in the closet"
      },
      "expansion": "skeleton in the closet (plural skeletons in the closet)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "American English",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A shameful secret."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "shameful",
          "shameful"
        ],
        [
          "secret",
          "secret"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(US, idiomatic) A shameful secret."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-skeleton in the closet.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/34/En-au-skeleton_in_the_closet.ogg/En-au-skeleton_in_the_closet.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/En-au-skeleton_in_the_closet.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "UK"
      ],
      "word": "skeleton in the cupboard"
    }
  ],
  "word": "skeleton in the closet"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.