"get one's hands dirty" meaning in English

See get one's hands dirty in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-get one's hands dirty.ogg [Australia] Forms: gets one's hands dirty [present, singular, third-person], getting one's hands dirty [participle, present], got one's hands dirty [past], got one's hands dirty [UK, participle, past], gotten one's hands dirty [US, participle, past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> one's hands dirty}} get one's hands dirty (third-person singular simple present gets one's hands dirty, present participle getting one's hands dirty, simple past got one's hands dirty, past participle (UK) got one's hands dirty or (US) gotten one's hands dirty)
  1. (idiomatic) To get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labour or unethical activities. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: dirty-handed, dirty work, the cat would eat fish but would not wet her feet Translations (Translations): liata kätensä (Finnish), se salir les mains (French), sich die Hände schmutzig machen (German), sich die Finger schmutzig machen (German), ensuciarse las manos (Spanish), no caérsele los anillos (Spanish)
    Sense id: en-get_one's_hands_dirty-en-verb-xf9mmVGU Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for get one's hands dirty meaning in English (2.8kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gets one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "getting one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gotten one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> one's hands dirty"
      },
      "expansion": "get one's hands dirty (third-person singular simple present gets one's hands dirty, present participle getting one's hands dirty, simple past got one's hands dirty, past participle (UK) got one's hands dirty or (US) gotten one's hands dirty)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If you expect to seal up every possible source of draftiness, you'll have to get your hands dirty — there will be some kneeling and crawling involved.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "He doesn't get his hands dirty — that's what the henchmen and the plausible deniability are for.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labour or unethical activities."
      ],
      "id": "en-get_one's_hands_dirty-en-verb-xf9mmVGU",
      "links": [
        [
          "unpleasant",
          "unpleasant"
        ],
        [
          "manual labour",
          "manual labour"
        ],
        [
          "unethical",
          "unethical"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labour or unethical activities."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "dirty-handed"
        },
        {
          "word": "dirty work"
        },
        {
          "word": "the cat would eat fish but would not wet her feet"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "liata kätensä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "se salir les mains"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "sich die Hände schmutzig machen"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "sich die Finger schmutzig machen"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "ensuciarse las manos"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "no caérsele los anillos"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-get one's hands dirty.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/En-au-get_one%27s_hands_dirty.ogg/En-au-get_one%27s_hands_dirty.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/En-au-get_one%27s_hands_dirty.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "get one's hands dirty"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "gets one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "getting one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "got one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "UK",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "gotten one's hands dirty",
      "tags": [
        "US",
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "get<,,got,got􂀿UK􂁀:gotten􂀿US􂁀> one's hands dirty"
      },
      "expansion": "get one's hands dirty (third-person singular simple present gets one's hands dirty, present participle getting one's hands dirty, simple past got one's hands dirty, past participle (UK) got one's hands dirty or (US) gotten one's hands dirty)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "dirty-handed"
    },
    {
      "word": "dirty work"
    },
    {
      "word": "the cat would eat fish but would not wet her feet"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "If you expect to seal up every possible source of draftiness, you'll have to get your hands dirty — there will be some kneeling and crawling involved.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "He doesn't get his hands dirty — that's what the henchmen and the plausible deniability are for.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labour or unethical activities."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "unpleasant",
          "unpleasant"
        ],
        [
          "manual labour",
          "manual labour"
        ],
        [
          "unethical",
          "unethical"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labour or unethical activities."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-get one's hands dirty.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/27/En-au-get_one%27s_hands_dirty.ogg/En-au-get_one%27s_hands_dirty.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/En-au-get_one%27s_hands_dirty.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "liata kätensä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "se salir les mains"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "sich die Hände schmutzig machen"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "sich die Finger schmutzig machen"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "ensuciarse las manos"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "no caérsele los anillos"
    }
  ],
  "word": "get one's hands dirty"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.