come clean

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

His decades of painstaking research helped lead to a push in the 1990s for the Air Force to come clean on what it had been doing: testing spy balloons and recovering crash dummies.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 22, 2026

Emma is the first from her family to go to university and isn't about to come clean to her proud working class dad about why she's suddenly back.

From BBC • Sep. 20, 2025

However, Alison Downes, director of pressure group Stop Sizewell C, said ministers had not "come clean" about Sizewell C's cost, because "negotiations with private investors are incomplete".

From BBC • Jun. 10, 2025

The book doesn’t come clean about what really happened; most readers, who won’t remember the incident, will be left confused.

From Slate • Sep. 2, 2024

I knew there was no demon, but there was no way I could come clean.

From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah