Sweep Things Under The Rug Meaning

The senator has been accused of trying to sweep his former drug use under the rug.
Sweep things under the rug meaning. Sweep something under the rug to ignore deny or conceal from public view or knowledge something that is embarrassing unappealing or damaging to one s reputation. To sweep something under the rug means to hide a problem or something unpleasant from other people with intentions to deal with the issue later or to simply ignore an issue. Sweep something under the rug meaning. To hide something that is illegal embarrassing or wrong he tried to sweep his past mistakes under the rug.
This idiom is always used in a negative sense. To sweep something under the rug or to sweep something under the carpet means to hide something to ignore something or to conceal something. One may choose to sweep something under the rug or sweep something under the carpet because it is embarrassing unpleasant to deal with or harmful.