"wash one's hands of" meaning in English

See wash one's hands of in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

IPA: /ˌwɒʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z‿əv/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˌwɔʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z‿əv/ [General-American] Audio: En-au-wash one's hands of.ogg [Australia] Forms: washes one's hands of [present, singular, third-person], washing one's hands of [participle, present], washed one's hands of [participle, past], washed one's hands of [past]
Etymology: From the account in Matthew 27:24 of the Bible in which Pontius Pilate, unwilling to condemn Jesus who has committed no crime but whose crucifixion the crowd has called for, symbolically washes his hands in public and says (according to the King James Version; spelling modernized): “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.” Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=wash one's hands of}} wash one's hands of (third-person singular simple present washes one's hands of, present participle washing one's hands of, simple past and past participle washed one's hands of)
  1. (transitive, idiomatic) To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for (something); to refuse to have any further involvement with (something). Wikipedia link: Jesus, Pontius Pilate Tags: idiomatic, transitive Categories (topical): Cleaning Synonyms: disclaim, disown, repudiate Related terms: wash one's hands Translations (to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for): غَسَلَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ الْأَمْرِ (ḡasala yadayhi mina l-ʔamri) (Arabic), 金盆洗手 (jīnpénxǐshǒu) (Chinese Mandarin), pestä kätensä (Finnish), se laver les mains de (French), die Hände in Unschuld waschen (German), νίπτω τας χείρας μου (nípto tas cheíras mou) (Greek), mossa kezeit (Hungarian), láta sigla sinn sjó (Icelandic), þvo hendur sínar af (Icelandic), cuci tangan (Indonesian), lavarsene le mani (Italian), 手を引く (te o hiku) (Japanese), ми́е ра́це од (míe ráce od) (Macedonian), cuci tangan (Malay), umywać ręce [imperfective] (Polish), lavar as mãos (Portuguese), redimir-se de (Portuguese), умыть руки (umytʹ ruki) (Russian), умывать руки (umyvatʹ ruki) (Russian), lavarse las manos (Spanish), desentenderse (Spanish), maghugas-kamay (Tagalog), చేతులు కడుగుకొను (cētulu kaḍugukonu) (Telugu)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for wash one's hands of meaning in English (7.5kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the account in Matthew 27:24 of the Bible in which Pontius Pilate, unwilling to condemn Jesus who has committed no crime but whose crucifixion the crowd has called for, symbolically washes his hands in public and says (according to the King James Version; spelling modernized): “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.”",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "washes one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washing one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "wash one's hands of"
      },
      "expansion": "wash one's hands of (third-person singular simple present washes one's hands of, present participle washing one's hands of, simple past and past participle washed one's hands of)",
      "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"
        },
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
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          "parents": [],
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Undetermined quotations with omitted translation",
          "parents": [
            "Quotations with omitted translation",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Cleaning",
          "orig": "en:Cleaning",
          "parents": [
            "Home",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1936 June 8, “National Affairs: Ditch Up, Dam Down”, in Henry R[obinson] Luce, editor, Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2012-01-01",
          "text": "[A]fter Congress had refused to appropriate money to continue them, President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt washed his hands of the two ventures.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 March 20, Philip Haigh, “Euston is the key to unlocking HS2's true potential”, in RAIL, number 1005, page 49",
          "text": "By contrast, today's government ministers appear to have washed their hands of Euston, perhaps thinking that its development can be entirely left to the private sector. I think that's a mistake.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for (something); to refuse to have any further involvement with (something)."
      ],
      "id": "en-wash_one's_hands_of-en-verb-~hx~XHA6",
      "links": [
        [
          "absolve",
          "absolve"
        ],
        [
          "responsibility",
          "responsibility"
        ],
        [
          "future",
          "future#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "blame",
          "blame#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "refuse",
          "refuse#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "involvement",
          "involvement"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, idiomatic) To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for (something); to refuse to have any further involvement with (something)."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "wash one's hands"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "disclaim"
        },
        {
          "word": "disown"
        },
        {
          "word": "repudiate"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "ar",
          "lang": "Arabic",
          "roman": "ḡasala yadayhi mina l-ʔamri",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "غَسَلَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ الْأَمْرِ"
        },
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "jīnpénxǐshǒu",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "金盆洗手"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "pestä kätensä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "se laver les mains de"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "die Hände in Unschuld waschen"
        },
        {
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "nípto tas cheíras mou",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "νίπτω τας χείρας μου"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "mossa kezeit"
        },
        {
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "láta sigla sinn sjó"
        },
        {
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "þvo hendur sínar af"
        },
        {
          "code": "id",
          "lang": "Indonesian",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "cuci tangan"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "lavarsene le mani"
        },
        {
          "code": "ja",
          "lang": "Japanese",
          "roman": "te o hiku",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "手を引く"
        },
        {
          "code": "mk",
          "lang": "Macedonian",
          "roman": "míe ráce od",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "ми́е ра́це од"
        },
        {
          "code": "ms",
          "lang": "Malay",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "cuci tangan"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "umywać ręce"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "lavar as mãos"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "redimir-se de"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "umytʹ ruki",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "умыть руки"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "umyvatʹ ruki",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "умывать руки"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "lavarse las manos"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "desentenderse"
        },
        {
          "code": "tl",
          "lang": "Tagalog",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "maghugas-kamay"
        },
        {
          "code": "te",
          "lang": "Telugu",
          "roman": "cētulu kaḍugukonu",
          "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
          "word": "చేతులు కడుగుకొను"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Jesus",
        "Pontius Pilate"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌwɒʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z‿əv/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌwɔʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z‿əv/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-wash one's hands of.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bd/En-au-wash_one%27s_hands_of.ogg/En-au-wash_one%27s_hands_of.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/En-au-wash_one%27s_hands_of.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wash one's hands of"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "From the account in Matthew 27:24 of the Bible in which Pontius Pilate, unwilling to condemn Jesus who has committed no crime but whose crucifixion the crowd has called for, symbolically washes his hands in public and says (according to the King James Version; spelling modernized): “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.”",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "washes one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washing one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "washed one's hands of",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*",
        "head": "wash one's hands of"
      },
      "expansion": "wash one's hands of (third-person singular simple present washes one's hands of, present participle washing one's hands of, simple past and past participle washed one's hands of)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "wash one's hands"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms derived from the Bible",
        "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English transitive verbs",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with raw sortkeys",
        "Undetermined quotations with omitted translation",
        "Undetermined terms with quotations",
        "en:Cleaning"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1936 June 8, “National Affairs: Ditch Up, Dam Down”, in Henry R[obinson] Luce, editor, Time, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2012-01-01",
          "text": "[A]fter Congress had refused to appropriate money to continue them, President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt washed his hands of the two ventures.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2024 March 20, Philip Haigh, “Euston is the key to unlocking HS2's true potential”, in RAIL, number 1005, page 49",
          "text": "By contrast, today's government ministers appear to have washed their hands of Euston, perhaps thinking that its development can be entirely left to the private sector. I think that's a mistake.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for (something); to refuse to have any further involvement with (something)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "absolve",
          "absolve"
        ],
        [
          "responsibility",
          "responsibility"
        ],
        [
          "future",
          "future#Adjective"
        ],
        [
          "blame",
          "blame#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "refuse",
          "refuse#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "involvement",
          "involvement"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(transitive, idiomatic) To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for (something); to refuse to have any further involvement with (something)."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "disclaim"
        },
        {
          "word": "disown"
        },
        {
          "word": "repudiate"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "transitive"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "Jesus",
        "Pontius Pilate"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌwɒʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z‿əv/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌwɔʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z‿əv/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-au-wash one's hands of.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/bd/En-au-wash_one%27s_hands_of.ogg/En-au-wash_one%27s_hands_of.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/En-au-wash_one%27s_hands_of.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ar",
      "lang": "Arabic",
      "roman": "ḡasala yadayhi mina l-ʔamri",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "غَسَلَ يَدَيْهِ مِنَ الْأَمْرِ"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "jīnpénxǐshǒu",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "金盆洗手"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "pestä kätensä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "se laver les mains de"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "die Hände in Unschuld waschen"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "nípto tas cheíras mou",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "νίπτω τας χείρας μου"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "mossa kezeit"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "láta sigla sinn sjó"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "þvo hendur sínar af"
    },
    {
      "code": "id",
      "lang": "Indonesian",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "cuci tangan"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "lavarsene le mani"
    },
    {
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "te o hiku",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "手を引く"
    },
    {
      "code": "mk",
      "lang": "Macedonian",
      "roman": "míe ráce od",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "ми́е ра́це од"
    },
    {
      "code": "ms",
      "lang": "Malay",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "cuci tangan"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "umywać ręce"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "lavar as mãos"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "redimir-se de"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "umytʹ ruki",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "умыть руки"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "umyvatʹ ruki",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "умывать руки"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "lavarse las manos"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "desentenderse"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "maghugas-kamay"
    },
    {
      "code": "te",
      "lang": "Telugu",
      "roman": "cētulu kaḍugukonu",
      "sense": "to absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for",
      "word": "చేతులు కడుగుకొను"
    }
  ],
  "word": "wash one's hands of"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 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.

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