Thick As Thieves - Wiktionary

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• 1 English Toggle English subsection
  • 1.1 Alternative forms
  • 1.2 Etymology
  • 1.3 Pronunciation
  • 1.4 Adjective
    • 1.4.1 Usage notes
    • 1.4.2 Translations
  • 1.5 References

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• Discussion

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English

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Alternative forms

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• thick as two thieves, close as thieves

Etymology

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From thick (“friendly, intimate”), first attested in 1827 as "thick as two thieves".[1]

Pronunciation

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• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Adjective

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thick as thieves (not comparable)

1. (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

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• Sometimes used with a connotation that the relationship has a suspicious and/or less than respectable quality.

Translations

[edit] intimate, close-knit

Catalan: cul i merda, carn i ungla Chinese: Cantonese: 糖黐豆 (tong4 ci1 dau6-2) Dutch: dikke mik Finnish: läheinen (fi), (colloquial) kuin paita ja peppu French: copains comme cochons (fr) pl, comme larrons en foire (fr), (informal) comme cul et chemise (fr) Hungarian: please add this translation if you can Italian: culo e camicia, pappa e ciccia Norwegian: Bokmål: henge sammen som erteris (no) Polish: znać się jak łyse konie (pl) (know each other like bald horses) Portuguese: please add this translation if you can Russian: водо́й не разольёшь (vodój ne razolʹjóšʹ) Spanish: como uña y mugre Turkish: et tırnak

References

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1. ^ Gary Martin (1997–), “As thick as thieves”, in The Phrase Finder, retrieved 2 December 2022: “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.”.

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