thick as thieves

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(as) thick as thieves (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic, simile, of friends or members of a group) Intimate, close-knit.
   • 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.

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