See dirty work in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
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"examples": [
{
"ref": "1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 2, in Mary Barton:",
"text": ". . . a sort of little back kitchen, where dirty work, such as washing up dishes, might be done.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1893, Horatio Alger, chapter 21, in Cast Upon the Breakers:",
"text": "\"I am no telltale,\" said James scornfully. . . . Jasper urged James to give information about Rodney, but he steadily refused. \"I leave others to do such dirty work,\" he said.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1917, Upton Sinclair, chapter 11, in King Coal:",
"text": "[M]any a business-man can say he doesn't do dirty work, because he has others do it for him.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1936, George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant:",
"text": "In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.",
"type": "quote"
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{
"ref": "2003 February 4, Elaine Shannon et al., “At Home, the FBI Keeps Tabs On Iraqis”, in Time:",
"text": "US experts believe the Iraqi intelligence service will set the plots in motion, then recruit or extort amateurs to do the dirty work.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"One or more unpleasant tasks, assignments, or employment duties, especially those of a disreputable or illicit nature."
],
"id": "en-dirty_work-en-noun-vDlLcM0h",
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"unpleasant",
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[
"task",
"task"
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[
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"employment"
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[
"duties",
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"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) One or more unpleasant tasks, assignments, or employment duties, especially those of a disreputable or illicit nature."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "get one's hands dirty"
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],
"tags": [
"idiomatic",
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"translations": [
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "likainen työ"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "sale boulot"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "basse besogne"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Drecksarbeit"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lavoro sporco"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "grjáznaja rabóta",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "гря́зная рабо́та"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "trabajo sucio"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "trabajito"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "skitgöra"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "grovjobb"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "kirli iş"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "pis iş"
}
]
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"word": "dirty work"
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"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
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"word": "get one's hands dirty"
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"ref": "1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, chapter 2, in Mary Barton:",
"text": ". . . a sort of little back kitchen, where dirty work, such as washing up dishes, might be done.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1893, Horatio Alger, chapter 21, in Cast Upon the Breakers:",
"text": "\"I am no telltale,\" said James scornfully. . . . Jasper urged James to give information about Rodney, but he steadily refused. \"I leave others to do such dirty work,\" he said.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1917, Upton Sinclair, chapter 11, in King Coal:",
"text": "[M]any a business-man can say he doesn't do dirty work, because he has others do it for him.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1936, George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant:",
"text": "In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2003 February 4, Elaine Shannon et al., “At Home, the FBI Keeps Tabs On Iraqis”, in Time:",
"text": "US experts believe the Iraqi intelligence service will set the plots in motion, then recruit or extort amateurs to do the dirty work.",
"type": "quote"
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"(idiomatic) One or more unpleasant tasks, assignments, or employment duties, especially those of a disreputable or illicit nature."
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{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "likainen työ"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "sale boulot"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "basse besogne"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Drecksarbeit"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "lavoro sporco"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "grjáznaja rabóta",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "гря́зная рабо́та"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "trabajo sucio"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "trabajito"
},
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"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "skitgöra"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "grovjobb"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "kirli iş"
},
{
"code": "tr",
"lang": "Turkish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "pis iş"
}
],
"word": "dirty work"
}
Download raw JSONL data for dirty work meaning in English (4.1kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-20 using wiktextract (05fdf6b and 9dbd323). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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