thick as thieves

thick as thieves

English

Alternative forms

• thick as two thieves, close as thieves

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Adjective

(as) 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 Oct. 26, Tony Karon, "What They're Saying About the War," Time (retrieved 4 Aug 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

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

Translations

intimate, close-knit

Catalan: cul i merda, carn i ungla Chinese: Cantonese: 糖黐豆 (tong4 ci1 dau6-2) 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

1. Gary Martin (1997–), “As thick as thieves”, in The Phrase Finder, retrieved 2022-12-02: “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.”.