Meaning
To do the hard, practical, or unpleasant parts of a job yourself rather than supervising or delegating them; said with approval of a willingness to muck in. A second, darker sense means to become personally involved in dishonest or illegal activity, taking a share of the grime of wrongdoing. The hard-work sense is warm and approving; the wrongdoing sense is accusatory, so the two can pull in opposite directions. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The image comes from manual labour - soil, grease, and clay on the worker's hands standing in for real, unglamorous effort. Grammarist, after surveying the phrase, reports that there is no definitive documented origin: the moral contrast between clean and dirty hands is ancient (it cites Pontius Pilate washing his hands to display innocence), but the expression was not in common idiomatic use until the mid-1800s. The dishonesty sense extends the same picture from toil to wrongdoing, so that a person who 'gets their hands dirty' in the criminal sense personally touches the illegal work instead of arranging it at a distance. No firmer first date than the mid-19th century is available from public sources, so that dating should be treated as approximate.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- dirty your hands
- get one's hands dirty
- not afraid to get your hands dirty
- soil your hands
Usage Examples
- Unlike most executives, she knows every stage of production and is not afraid to get her hands dirty.
- If we want this house restored by summer, we will have to get our hands dirty ourselves.
- Investigators allege that several respected bankers got their hands dirty in the laundering scheme.