double life
nounUS, UK /ˈdʌb(ə)l ˌlaɪf/
1
An existence or life that has two aspects, particularly when one of them is regarded as embarrassing, immoral, or unlawful and thus kept hidden from some people.
- He lived a double life as both a British diplomat and a Soviet spy.
- [page 153] But perhaps the most remarkable illustration of a double life is one which has been brought before the notice of the scientific world recently; [...] "A sergeant of the French army, F——, twenty-seven years of age, was wounded at the Battle of Bazeilles, by a ball which fractured his left parietal bone. [...] [page 154] Three or four months after the wound was inflicted, periodic disturbances of the functions of the brain made their appearance, and have continued ever since. [...] For four years, therefore, the life of this man has been divided into alternating phases, short abnormal states intervening between long normal states."1875 February, “Have We Two Brains?”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume XXXI, number 182, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 153 and 154:
4 more examples
- Nearly all great criminals lead double lives. Strange as it may appear, it is a fact that some of the most unscrupulous rascals who ever cracked a safe or turned out a counterfeit were at home model husbands and fathers. [...] I recall one desperate fellow who paid for his two little daughters' education at a convent in Canada, from which they were graduated well-bred and bright young ladies, without ever a suspicion of their father's business reaching them.1892, Helen Campbell, chapter XXXVIII, in Darkness and Daylight; or, Lights and Shadows of New York Life. […], Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington & Co., publishers, →OCLC, page 695:
- A man cannot live a lie and not be detected in it. He may sometimes live for years with a cloak about him, enveloping the dark side of his nature, but sooner or later the mask will be torn away, and the true man revealed. There are those who live double lives, who, like the characters in [Robert Louis] Stevenson's famous English novel [Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)], have the extremes of good and evil in their natures; but, for the sake of human kind in general, let us be thankful they are few and far between.1894 January, “The Search Light”, in Harry Wakefield Bates, editor, Godey’s Magazine, volume CXXVIII, number 763, New York, N.Y.: Godey Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 110, column 1:
- I have found in other churches some of the most regular Churchpeople who were living double lives. Are there any here who are living double lives, and who have not obeyed and are not obeying the authority of Jesus Christ—who are tampering with His marriage law— [...]1905 April 2, Lord Bishop of London [i.e., Arthur Winnington-Ingram], “Sermon at Kensington Palace Church”, in The Bishop of London’s Lenten Mission. A Series of Addresses Delivered in Various London Churches during Lent, 1905. […], London; Brighton, East Sussex: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, […]; New York, N.Y.: E. S. Gorham; […], published 1906, →OCLC, page 31:
- There is no doubt I lead a very double life. I strive to do right and continually do wrong. Yet I do not do the right I do to make it a cloak for evil. The evil that I do is done unwillingly, it comes of the frailty of my nature, I am sorry for it.1976, C[harles] P[erry] Stacey, quoting William Lyon Mackenzie King, “Mathilde Grossert”, in A Very Double Life: The Private World of Mackenzie King, Toronto, Ont.: Goodread Biographies, →OCLC; paperback edition, Halifax, Nova Scotia: Formac Publishing Company, 2013, →ISBN, part I (The Boy and the Girls), page 50:
2
The hidden, or more unusual, aspect of a person's life.
- Counterintelligence agents discovered the British diplomat's double life as a Soviet spy.
- A single mother who vanished from western Colorado more than seven years ago led a double life as a paid escort with many unsavory clients, investigators say.2014 November 22, Associated Press, “Client arrested 7 years after mom with secret life disappeared”, in New York Post, New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Jun 2016:
2 more examples
- Our window into both worlds—the cluttered “real” one and the expansive virtual-reality alternative—is 18-year-old orphan Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who lives a double life as a vaguely elven avatar with frosty, malleable hair and a DeLorean constructed from 1s and 0s.2018 March 26, A. A. Dowd, “Steven Spielberg Finds Fun, and maybe even a Soul, in the Pandering Pastiche of Ready Player One”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 31 May 2018:
- A woman only discovered her 'family man' husband had led a secret double life as a spy after his death. Audrey Phillips, 85, was married to Glyn for 64 years but was unaware he had been working for the British Intelligence Force since he was 13.2019 May 24, Sarah Lumley, Phoebe Eckersley, “Woman discovers husband of 64 years had led double life as a spy after his death”, in Daily Mirror, London: Reach plc, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 01 Jun 2019: