<P> Skeleton in the closet or skeleton in the cupboard is a colloquial phrase and idiom used to describe an undisclosed fact about someone which , if revealed , would have a negative impact on perceptions of the person ; it hyperbolically evokes the idea of someone having had a ( presumedly human ) corpse concealed in their home so long that it had decomposed but for its bones . `` Cupboard '' is used in British English instead of the American English word `` closet '' . It is known to have been used as a phrase , at least as early as November 1816 , in the monthly British journal The Eclectic Review , page 468 . It is listed in both the Oxford English Dictionary , and Webster 's Dictionary , under the word `` skeleton '' . The `` Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary '' lists it under this but also as a separate idiom . In the most derisive of usage ; murder , or significant culpability in a years - old disappearance or non-understood event ( a mystery ) , may be implied by the phrase . </P>
<P> Skeleton in the closet or skeleton in the cupboard is a colloquial phrase and idiom used to describe an undisclosed fact about someone which , if revealed , would have a negative impact on perceptions of the person ; it hyperbolically evokes the idea of someone having had a ( presumedly human ) corpse concealed in their home so long that it had decomposed but for its bones . `` Cupboard '' is used in British English instead of the American English word `` closet '' . It is known to have been used as a phrase , at least as early as November 1816 , in the monthly British journal The Eclectic Review , page 468 . It is listed in both the Oxford English Dictionary , and Webster 's Dictionary , under the word `` skeleton '' . The `` Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary '' lists it under this but also as a separate idiom . In the most derisive of usage ; murder , or significant culpability in a years - old disappearance or non-understood event ( a mystery ) , may be implied by the phrase . </P>
where did the term skeletons in the closet come from
where did the term skeletons in the closet come from
the idea of someone having had a ( presumedly human ) corpse concealed in their home so long that it had decomposed but for its bones
the idea of someone having had a ( presumedly human ) corpse concealed in their home so long that it had decomposed but for its bones