skeleton in one's cupboard

English

Noun

skeleton in one's cupboard (plural skeletons in one's cupboard or skeletons in one's cupboards)

  1. Alternative form of skeleton in the cupboard.
    • 1871, Theo[dore] L[edyard] Cuyler, quoting a former resident of Ohio, “Preface”, in Julia McNair Wright, The Best Fellow in the World. His Haps and Mishaps. […], New York, N.Y.: National Temperance Society and Publication House, […], →OCLC, page 4:
      Could K⁠—⁠— have seen the fruits of that ‘sherry cobbler,’ that one drink, he might better have given me a potion of strychnine in its stead. I am an embodiment of the fruits of that one drink. The bottle has been the skeleton in my closet ever since.
    • 1958 November 21, Cecily Hastings, “God’s Record of God’s Work”, in Pattern of Scripture (Canterbury Books), New York, N.Y.: Sheed and Ward, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 16:
      Just as we ought, if we mean our faith at all, to give up being nervous about Church history, for the Church will never die because of the skeletons in her cupboards, so we ought to give up being nervous about the Bible: either defensive of it or defensive against it.
    • 1991, Gordon Stretch, “Best Man No. 5”, in Wedding Speeches (Example Speeches for Bride’s Father, Groom, Best Man and Others) (Right Way), Tadworth, Surrey: Elliot Right Way Books, →ISBN, part 5 (Speeches for the Best Man), page 125:
      What neither of us knew at the time was that when I set about preparing my speech, knowing now that there were skeletons in John’s cupboard, it was only natural for me to want to find them and so approach the very people who knew about them, his other friends.
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