honor among thieves
honor among thieves noun: trustworthiness within a group that is not considered trustworthy by outsiders.
Noun
honor among thieves (uncountable)
- Trustworthiness within a group that is not considered trustworthy by outsiders.
- While a corrupt Chuch and untrustworthy nobles and kings scraped for power, businessmen in Italy honored pledges of businessmen from England and Scandinavia. This trust (some have called it honor among thieves) is still a hallmark of modern brokerage.2000, Robert Sobel, The Big Board: A History of the New York Stock Market, →ISBN, page 4
- That sounds odd here in Washington these days, but some of the old-timers still like to pretend there is honor alive among the political thieves.2003, Tony Hillerman, The Sinister Pig, →ISBN, page 2
Forms of honor among thieves
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Origin of honor among thieves
From Plato.
Words formed from honor among thieves
Questions about honor among thieves
- What does honor among thieves mean?
- Honor among thieves means trustworthiness within a group that is not considered trustworthy by outsiders.
- What part of speech is honor among thieves?
- Honor among thieves is a noun.
Words near honor among thieves in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: honor among thieves (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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