Idiom
thick as thieves
Meaning
Intimate, close-knit, tight.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“The two new coworkers are as thick as thieves.”
“The two neighbors are thick as thieves and share every secret.”
“Ever since they started working on the project together, those two have been as thick as thieves.”
“My cousins are thick as thieves and always whisper together in the corner during our large family holiday dinners.”
“After spending the whole summer at camp together, the boys returned home thick as thieves and refused to spend a day apart.”
“Despite their vastly different backgrounds, the two conspirators became as thick as thieves while planning their daring escape from the city.”
Examples
simple
“The two new coworkers are as thick as thieves.”
“The two neighbors are thick as thieves and share every secret.”
contextual
“Ever since they started working on the project together, those two have been as thick as thieves.”
“My cousins are thick as thieves and always whisper together in the corner during our large family holiday dinners.”
“After spending the whole summer at camp together, the boys returned home thick as thieves and refused to spend a day apart.”
complex
“Despite their vastly different backgrounds, the two conspirators became as thick as thieves while planning their daring escape from the city.”
Origin
First attested in 1827 as the longer variant "thick as two thieves," the idiom derives from a specific sense of the word thick denoting a state of close, private intimacy. It implies a degree of friendship so concentrated that the parties involved might reasonably be suspected of conspiring in a shared criminal enterprise. The 1827 citation marks the transition of this particular use of thick from a description of proximity into a fixed social comparison.
Key words
Related idioms
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