skeleton key

1. 1.

   a passkey with much of the bit filed away so that it can open different locks

   Broaderpasskey

Questions about skeleton key

What does skeleton key mean?

skeleton key means "a passkey with much of the bit filed away so that it can open different locks".

Is skeleton key a common word?

skeleton key is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.