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family skeleton

British  

noun

  1. a closely guarded family secret

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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And sure, a memoir need not be a storage container for every family skeleton, but relevant narration — heartbreaking or otherwise — is, I’d argue, a big chunk of a writer’s basic job description.

From New York Times Mar. 28, 2023

George Bernard Shaw wrote: "If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."

From The Guardian Jun. 22, 2013

At last Chicken exhumes the ultimate family skeleton, and Jeb, the levee and the film simultaneously collapse.

From Time Magazine Archive

Deep down in the crypt of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Manhattan, rattled the bones of the Protestant Episcopal family skeleton last week.

From Time Magazine Archive

Not even a metatarsal of any family skeleton interested Bull Meecham if the family was not his own.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy

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