What it means
A shameful secret you keep tucked away, like a dodgy past, an affair, or an arrest. People drop it when they’re hinting there’s more going on than they’re saying. In the UK you’ll also hear skeleton in the cupboard, same idea, just a different bit of furniture. Handy for gossip and family drama.
Usage examples
"Mum says every family has a skeleton in the closet. I said ours has a whole cemetery. She goes, shush, not about Uncle Gerald."
"Every old family has a skeleton or two in the closet."
"The background check turned up a skeleton in the closet he had hoped stayed buried."
Where it comes from
A vivid old image, more often a skeleton in the cupboard in British English. It conjures a literal skeleton, perhaps a scandalous corpse, hidden away behind a locked door where visitors will not stumble on it. Figuratively it is any shameful or embarrassing secret from the past that a person or family keeps carefully hidden, dreading the day the cupboard door swings open.
Other ways to say it
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