skeleton in one's cupboard

plural skeletons in one's cupboard · plural skeletons in one's cupboards

1. alternativeAlternative form of skeleton in the cupboard.

   Poor fools that we are—waiting for a crumb from the free man’s table! We’re none of your business! We’re just the skeleton in Europe’s cupboard.

   1954, Shevawn Lynam, chapter 9, in The Spirit and the Clay, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 288

   2 more examples

   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.

   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

   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.

   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