Meaning
Do not discuss private quarrels, family secrets or embarrassing internal affairs where outsiders can hear. Usually a rebuke to someone airing a domestic or organizational dispute in public. Chiefly British wording; American English strongly prefers 'air your dirty laundry (in public)'. Slightly formal, disapproving register; 'linen' marks British usage and 'laundry' American. Regional use: British English.
Origin
The Napoleon attribution is real but almost always misstated, and the popular '1815 letter' version is unsupported. Word Histories traces the remark to his speech dismissing the Corps Legislatif on 1 January 1814 - not, as Christine Ammer's Dictionary of Cliches and many others claim, to his 1815 return from Elba - and the words survive only as reported speech with varying wording across 1814-15 sources, not as a verbatim letter. English uses follow within five years and openly credit him: John Cam Hobhouse's Defence of the People (1819), 'We, radical Reformers, will not, as Bonaparte said, wash our dirty linen in public', then the Literary Gazette (1826) and the Morning Herald (1827). A looser English phrase without the public element appears as early as 1809 (Fessenden's 'wash his dirty linen', found by Gary Martin), and the American 'dirty laundry' rewording is not found before the mid-to-late 20th century. No French attestation older than Napoleon's speech has been traced, so the proverb may in fact begin with him.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- Air your dirty laundry in public
- Air your dirty linen in public
- Don't air your dirty laundry in public
- Wash your dirty linen in public
Usage Examples
- The family lawyer begged the heirs not to wash their dirty linen in public during the probate dispute.
- Whatever the board thinks of the chief executive, washing dirty linen in public will only depress the share price.
- Her memoir aired decades of dirty linen, much to her relatives' horror.