mutual admiration society

Idioms  

1. A relationship in which two people have strong feelings of esteem for each other and often exchange lavish compliments. The term may signify either genuine or pretended admiration, as in Each of them praised the other's book—it was a real mutual admiration society. The expression was invented by Henry David Thoreau in his journal (1851) and repeated by Oliver Wendell Holmes and others.

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Example Sentences

Nowhere was that more true than in the three movies he made for Stanley Kubrick, with whom he formed something of a mutual admiration society.

From New York Times • Jul. 4, 2022

Set in the late 1930s in Albert Einstein’s Princeton, N.J., home, Brevoort’s 100-minute play concerns the real-life mutual admiration society between two virtuosos, the maestro of theoretical physics and the revered contralto Marian Anderson.

From Washington Post • Oct. 7, 2021

Goolagong Cawley made it clear in an interview Sunday that it was a mutual admiration society.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 10, 2021

On “My Way,” the prolific Texan swings and croons through 11 songs associated with Frank Sinatra, with whom he formed an unlikely and undeniable mutual admiration society.

From Washington Times • Sep. 11, 2018

I have a job to do and will not get very far forward as one half of a mutual admiration society.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove