make a clean breast
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmeɪk ə ˈkliːn bɹɛst/
ipa: /ˈmeɪk ə ˈklin bɹɛst/
Forms: form: makes a clean breast
form: making a clean breast
form: made a clean breast
form: made a clean breast
Etymology: From the notion that secrets are figuratively hidden in the heart which is contained in the breast (“chest”), and that admitting them will cause the heart to become clean and pure.
Senses: examples: text: He preſſed him earneſtly to make a clean breaſt, and tell him all he knew of [Colin Roy Campbell of] Glenure's murder. To which Breck [i.e., Alan Breck Stewart] anſwered with an oath, that he had never ſeen Glenure dead or alive.
ref: 1753 October, “Extracts from the Trial of James Stewart, […]”, in The Scots Magazine. […], volume XV, Edinburgh: Printed by W. Sands, A. Murray, and J. Cochran, →OCLC, page 508:
text: "Master," he said that day to me, "this must come to an end. I must make a clean breast of it. This Nemo is leaving land and going up to the north. But I declare to you that I have had enough of the South Pole, and I will not follow him to the North."
ref: 1873, Jules Verne, “The Gulf Stream”, in [anonymous], transl., Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas; […], James R. Osgood edition, Boston, Mass.: Geo[rge] M[urray] Smith & Co., →OCLC, part II, page 278:
text: 'It is well, then, that we should be frank,' said the other. 'We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast. This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?'
ref: 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Last Night”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 78:
text: You know no doubt that most criminals at some time or other feel an irresistible need of confessing—of making a clean breast of it to somebody—to anybody.
ref: 1906 January–October, Joseph Conrad, chapter X, in The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale (Collection of British Authors; 3995), copyright edition, London: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published 1907, →OCLC, page 219:
text: I had lied to Paddock about him, and the whole thing looked desperately fishy. If I made a clean breast of it and told the police everything he had told me, they would simply laugh at me.
ref: 1915 August–September, John Buchan, “The Milkman Sets Out on His Travels”, in The Thirty-Nine Steps, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published October 1915, →OCLC, page 38:
text: Instead, imagine that a software project manager approaches you and makes a clean breast of his uncertainty about your proposed project: "Look, there are unknowns here, and we have catalogued the following eleven of them."
ref: 2003, Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister, “The Case for Risk Management”, in Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects, New York, N.Y.: Dorset House Publishing, published 2013, →ISBN, part I (Why), page 30:
synonyms: word: acknowledge
word: admit
word: assent
word: avow
word: beknow
word: come clean
word: concede
word: confess
word: fess
word: fess up
word: front up
word: make a clean breast
word: own
word: own up
word: shrive
word: sing
word: spill one's guts
word: spill the beans
word: step forward
word: talk
word: tell all
word: unbosom
glosses: Often followed by of: to be honest about something; to confess.
Related terms: get off one's chest