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Skeleton key   /skˈɛlətən ki/   Listen
Skeleton key

noun
1.
A passkey with much of the bit filed away so that it can open different locks.





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"Skeleton key" Quotes from Famous Books



... stories. But after all, how little difference it makes whether or not a writer appears with a mask on which everybody can take off,—whether he bolts his door or not, when everybody can look in at his windows, and all his entrances are at the mercy of the critic's skeleton key and the jimmy of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... skeleton key used by housebreakers to open a lock. To stand on the screw signifies that a door is not bolted, but ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... him first a few months ago at Mrs. White's boarding-house in Russell Square. He subjected me there to great annoyance by claiming me as his wife. As a matter of fact, I had never spoken to him before in my life. Since then he has persistently annoyed me. I have suspected him of possessing a skeleton key to my apartments. To-night I locked up my flat at six o'clock. It was then, I am sure, empty. I dined with a friend and went to the 'Unusual.' At a quarter past eleven I returned here with this gentleman, Mr. Brendon. As we turned the corner of the street, I noticed that the electric ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim


Words linked to "Skeleton key" :   master, master key, passe-partout, passkey


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