dirty laundry

dirty laundry

One's very private, personal matters, especially that which may be embarrassing. It always makes me uncomfortable when John starts going into all his personal problems whenever our friends get together. I just wish he wouldn't air his dirty laundry in public like that. People have an unnatural fixation on the personal lives of celebrities, but I don't see why they should be expected to wash their dirty laundry in public.
See also: dirty, laundry
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

someone's dirty laundry

Fig. someone's unpleasant secrets. I don't want to hear about her dirty laundry. Why do you feel it necessary to gossip about things like this?
See also: dirty, laundry
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

dirty laundry

verb
See dirty linen
See also: dirty, laundry
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • air (one's) dirty laundry in public
  • air (one's) dirty linen in public
  • air dirty linen in public
  • wash (one's) dirty laundry in public
  • overshare
  • speak for
  • speak for (one)
  • spoken for
  • if you don't mind me saying (so)
  • if you don't mind my saying (so)
References in periodicals archive
How long will the PM House remain hostage to this dirty laundry? By now it must be loaded with dirt like the Ganges River.
idea to to Nagging should be music to our ears and dirty laundry a treat because there are parents who have lost this forever
The short film "Dirty Laundry: Greed Has No Face" encountered much publicity as Feli Fame strategically incorporated his music visuals and audio leading up until today's release.
Now, that air has been digitalised, and dirty laundry pops up in the form of mistakenly sent messages, email responses and Facebook wall posts.
What happens when seven wild washerwomen decide they've had it with dirty laundry and wrinkled clothing?
The closure of the laundry service has been created by Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust withdrawing its contracts to wash its dirty laundry at the QE.
In her debut novel, Dirty Laundry, Gina Spriggs serves up real life issues like racism, sexual confusion and the difficulties of friendships between women in a deliciously fun read.
It seems logical that a good manager would want to deal with "dirty laundry" inside the organization before there were any negative headlines--or even a tragedy.
We owe the way we know the world to school-masters droning over the map of the day, blurbing stories of how empty space gets magically replaced with god's country, experts slurping fables into tables that don't chart our manifest destiny, newsreaders gleaming stars and dirty laundry in high deaf digitalis instead of clean scoops on the freedempire, streaming a banter of body counts that don't add up instead of countdowns to the last twilight.
He was in soiled clothes and had dirty laundry for a bed.
And the Plat ts and Windasses continued to air their dirty laundry in public.
Instead fans chose not to "wash dirty laundry in public", but to sing their opposition from the terraces.
His next project is the much anticipated Dirty Laundry, which opens in December and tells the story of Patrick, a successful gay man, played by uber-hottie Rockmond Dunbar (Prison Break, TV's Soul Food), who returns home after many years and comes out to his family.
Hospitals send dirty laundry to private contractors, leaving bugs in the vans.
Crystal McCrary Anthony financed her new film, the highly anticipated Dirty Laundry, due in theaters March 2007, by any means necessary.