as close as wax
- idiom
- Archaic
:
tan cercanos como la cera
- The two friends have been as close as wax since childhood, rarely seen apart.
Examples
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The sisters are as close as wax, always sharing their secrets with each other.
-
Although they come from different backgrounds, they quickly became as close as wax.
-
They were as close as wax after spending years together.
-
My sister and I are as close as wax.
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The sisters are as close as wax, always sharing their secrets with each other.
-
The two friends have been as close as wax since childhood, rarely seen apart.
-
They were as close as wax after spending years together.
Synonyms
∞
1.3
Having a strong friendly relationship with someone
160
4.4
Having a very close personal relationship, sometimes sexual
57
1.0
Close to someone in feeling or family
7
6.4
People or groups that are very close and stay together most of the time
Antonyms
How Close
Surface Forms
Morphology
The simile pattern 'as ... as' is productive, but the constituent 'wax' (the substance) has no semantic link to interpersonal closeness, so a learner who knows the words would not infer the intended meaning. This phrase appears to be non‑compositional, dialectal or erroneous rather than a transparent metaphor, making its meaning unpredictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The idiom as close as wax comes from the image of melted wax that joins things together. When wax melts it sticks objects very tightly as it cools, so the phrase came to mean 'very close' or 'intimate'.