MAKE A CLEAN BREAST OF Definition & Meaning

make a clean breast of

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Idioms and Phrases

Confess fully, as in Caught shoplifting, the girls decided to make a clean breast of it to their parents . This expression, first recorded in 1752, uses clean breast in the sense of baring of one's heart, the breast long considered the seat of private or secret feelings.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

“I do,” Lawson said, adding, “I want to make a clean breast of it.”

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It is customary for coöperating witnesses, at the start of their testimony, to make a clean breast of things, so they cannot get caught out on subsequent questioning by the defense.

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Unfortunately, rather than make a clean breast of it all, new FBI Director Christopher Wray behaves as though the bureau doesn’t need to answer to the American people’s elected representatives in Congress.

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They’re not wrong, but did part of this come from their secretiveness and unwillingness to make a clean breast of things?”

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This was the point at which Cameron should have made a clean breast of the facts, Labour and some of his own Conservative MPs now say.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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