Word.ws English Dictionary

sweep something under the rug

sweep something under the rug verb: to conceal a problem (usually an embarrassing or illegal one) expediently, rather than remedy it thoroughly.

Verb

sweep something under the rug (third-person singular simple present sweeps something under the rug, present participle sweeping something under the rug, simple past and past participle swept something under the rug)

  1. (idiomatic) To conceal a problem (usually an embarrassing or illegal one) expediently, rather than remedy it thoroughly.
    • Near-synonyms: cover (sth.) up, draw a veil over (sth.)
    • “One of the problems with the entertainment industry is that, to protect the image of these people, they try to deal with the problem by sweeping it under the rug,” said John T. Schwarzlose, chief executive of the Betty Ford Center, the licensed addiction hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif.2011 March 7, Brooks Barnes, Bill Carter, Michael Cieply, “Sheen Is Surrounded by a Coterie of Enablers”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

sweep something under the rug meaning in Indonesian

sweep something under the rug in Indonesian

to conceal a problem expediently
menyimpan jarum patah dalam peti

Synonyms of sweep something under the rug

Forms of sweep something under the rug

third-person singular presentsweeps something under the rug
present participlesweeping something under the rug
past participleswept something under the rug
pastswept something under the rug

Questions about sweep something under the rug

What does sweep something under the rug mean?
Sweep something under the rug means to conceal a problem (usually an embarrassing or illegal one) expediently, rather than remedy it thoroughly.
What is sweep something under the rug in Indonesian?
Sweep something under the rug in Indonesian is menyimpan jarum patah dalam peti. See Sweep something under the rug meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is sweep something under the rug?
Sweep something under the rug is a verb.
What is the past tense of sweep something under the rug?
The past tense of sweep something under the rug is swept something under the rug.

Words near sweep something under the rug in the dictionary

  1. sweep picking
  2. sweep saw
  3. sweep saws
  4. sweep someone off their feet
  5. sweep something under the carpet
  6. sweep something under the rug
  7. sweep the board
  8. sweep the deck
  9. sweep the floor with someone
  10. sweep up
  11. sweep-chimney

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sweep something under the rug (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-sweep something under the rug.ogg.

Cite this entry: “sweep something under the rug.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sweep_something_under_the_rug. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.