get one's hands dirty
get one's hands dirty verb: to get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labor or unethical activities.
Verb
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)
- To get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labor or unethical activities.
- 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.
- He doesn't get his hands dirty — that's what the henchmen and the plausible deniability are for.
Forms of get one's hands dirty
| third-person singular present | gets one's hands dirty |
|---|---|
| present participle | getting one's hands dirty |
| past | got one's hands dirty |
| past participle UK | got one's hands dirty |
| past participle US | gotten one's hands dirty |
Questions about get one's hands dirty
- What does get one's hands dirty mean?
- Get one's hands dirty means to get involved with the unpleasant parts of a task, such as manual labor or unethical activities.
- What part of speech is get one's hands dirty?
- Get one's hands dirty is a verb.
- What is the past tense of get one's hands dirty?
- The past tense of get one's hands dirty is got one's hands dirty.
Words near get one's hands dirty in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: get one's hands dirty (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get one's hands dirty.ogg.
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