crown jewels

plural noun

1. the jewellery, including the regalia, used by a sovereign on a state occasion

Idioms and Phrases

A prized possession or asset, as in The Iliad and Odyssey are the crown jewels of ancient literature , or The software products are the company's crown jewels . This usage transfers the value of royal jewels to some other object. [Late 1800s]

Also, family jewels . The male genitals, especially the testicles. For example, She gave the would-be mugger a hard kick in the family jewels . A slang euphemism, the term dates from the 1970s, and the variant from the early 1900s.

Example Sentences

PARIS—French authorities said they’ve detained four more people in connection to the Louvre heist, including a man suspected of being the only thief to remain at large after purloining the nation’s crown jewels.

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His tenure followed a nearly two-decade tumultuous stretch for the insurance conglomerate that included near bankruptcy, multiple management changes and the selling off of crown jewels to repay one of the U.S. government’s biggest bailouts.

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Barely 24 hours had passed since thieves had broken into the Louvre Museum and stolen France’s crown jewels when the mayor of Langres, a walled medieval town in Eastern France, received a troubling phone call.

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"Let no-one be mistaken: the theft of the crown jewels is a resounding wake-up call," said the court's president, Pierre Moscovici.

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The auditor released its 153-page report after a team of thieves used low-tech methods to break into the museum last month and steal France’s crown jewels, drawing attention to the Louvre’s porous security.

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Related Words

• headband 
• headdress