thick as thieves
English
Alternative forms
- thick as two thieves, close as thieves
Pronunciation
Audio (AU) (file)
Adjective
(as) thick as thieves (not comparable)
- (idiomatic, simile, of friends or members of a group) Intimate, close-knit, tight.
- 1884, Mark Twain, chapter 30, in Huckleberry Finn:
- So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms.
- 1904, Fergus Hume, chapter 9, in The Red Window:
- He and Victoria were as thick as thieves, and are about equal in wickedness.
- 2001 October 26, Tony Karon, “What They're Saying About the War”, in Time, retrieved 4 August 2015:
- President Bush may think he's as thick as thieves with his pal Vladimir Putin, but hopefully someone at the White House is reading the English edition of Pravda.
Usage notes
- Sometimes used with a connotation that the relationship has a suspicious or less than respectable quality.
Translations
intimate, close-knit
|
References
- Gary Martin (1997–) “As thick as thieves”, in The Phrase Finder, retrieved 2022-12-02: “The first example that I can find of it in print is from the English newspaper The Morning Chronicle, in a letter dated March 1827, published in February 1828: Bill Morris and me are as thick as two thieves.”.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.