dirty laundry

noun

: private matters whose public exposure brings distress and embarrassment

called also dirty linen

Example Sentences

The company is trying to keep its dirty laundry from being aired in public.

Recent Examples on the Web

But this public airing of college football’s dirty laundry is a level of rich-on-rich crime that plays out like a real-life rendering of the war deterrent theory known as MAD — mutually assured destruction. —Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 21 May 2022

The laundry room: an ancient washing machine, flanked by mountains of empty containers, vats of desiccated winemaking supplies, and piles of dirty laundry. —Longreads, 20 Apr. 2022

Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, finalized in October after six months in which each party aired their dirty laundry, weighed heavily on Tesla. —Derek Saul, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2023

The duffel has a cavernous main compartment, a large mesh zippered pocket for stashing a book and other smaller items, and a dirty laundry compartment — with a separate zippered entry — on the bottom. —Kari Bodnarchuk, BostonGlobe.com, 12 Jan. 2023

The town’s Chinese laundryman and cook Kai (Lawrence Kao) knows everyone’s dirty laundry (literally) and is always around at the right moment to learn even more. —Latoya Ferguson, Variety, 5 Oct. 2022

Harry says that the Royal Family airs its dirty laundry through leaks with the press. —Vulture, 8 Jan. 2023

Kotb, 58, chimed in to defend herself over airing Bush Hager's dirty laundry live on air. —Hedy Phillips, Peoplemag, 30 Nov. 2022

One of the upsides, though, is that so much of Twitter's internal dirty laundry has come to light—like the fact that the company pays $13 million per year on employee lunches. —Li Goldstein, Bon Appétit, 18 Nov. 2022

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Word History

First Known Use

1967, in the meaning defined above