wash one's dirty laundry in public

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

To publicly discuss or expose one's personal problems or embarrassing issues

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

điscuss hoặc tiết lộ vấn đề hoặc vấn đề nhục nhã của bản thân trước công chúng

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to wash dirty clothes in a public place
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The celebrity didn't want to wash her dirty laundry in public, so she kept quiet about her divorce

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “wash one's dirty laundry in public” mean?

To publicly discuss or expose one's personal problems or embarrassing issues Literally: to wash dirty clothes in a public place

Is “wash one's dirty laundry in public” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.