Idiom: get one’s hands dirty
Meaning
Idiom: get one’s hands dirty
- to do hard work, especially hard physical labor
- to do something illegal or underhanded
Example sentences
— My boss is great because she’ll get her hands dirty and help us with mailings and phone calls whenever we get really busy.
— My son was never one to get his hands dirty. Even when he was a boy, he used his allowance to pay his sister to mow the lawn and clean his room.
— I refused to get my hands dirty by misleading customers so I was fired after the first week on the job.
— To get elected, some politicians get their hands dirty by taking donations from unscrupulous sources.
— When doing business around the world, you have to be willing to get your hands dirty and sometimes that means paying bribes.
— This year we got our Halloween pumpkins from the pumpkin patch and it was really fun to get our hands dirty and pick our own.
— Habitat for Humanity is always looking for volunteers who are not afraid of getting their hands dirty helping to build houses for low-income people.
Synonyms
- roll one's sleeves up (meaning 1 above)
- grease someone's palm (meaning 2)
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