to air dirty linen
- idiom
- Informal
:
sacar los trapos sucios
- She refused to air dirty linen in public, preferring to keep family issues private.
Examples
-
It's unwise to air dirty linen at work meetings, where others need not hear personal conflicts.
-
Don't air dirty linen in front of the children!
-
Despite pressure from the media, the politician avoided airing dirty linen about his colleagues.
-
She prefers not to air dirty linen at family gatherings.
-
In the interview, he chose not to air dirty linen, focusing instead on his professional accomplishments.
-
It's best to avoid airing dirty linen publicly, as it can damage relationships with friends.
-
During the meeting, she decided against airing dirty linen and spoke only about work-related matters.
Synonyms
1
8.5
To tell private or bad things about someone to other people
To talk about private or embarrassing family matters in public
To talk about private, embarrassing things in front of other people
Antonyms
How Public
81
3.0
- Informal
7
3.4
∞
1.6
76
2.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
The verb 'air' (to make public) combined with the literal words 'dirty' and 'linen' yields a clear metaphor of making soiled/private clothes visible, which can lead a learner to infer the idiomatic meaning 'reveal embarrassing private matters'. However, the crucial step — that 'dirty linen' is a conventional metaphor for private shame — is a figurative mapping that is not fully predictable from the parts and may require prior exposure.
Etymology
Air dirty linen comes from the image of hanging dirty linen, meaning dirty clothes, out in the open to air them where everyone can see. So, air dirty linen means to talk about 'private or embarrassing' things in public.