Word.ws English Dictionary

getting one's hands dirty

getting one's hands dirty is the present participle and gerund of get one's hands dirty.

Meaning of get one's hands dirty

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)

  1. (idiomatic) 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.

Questions about getting one's hands dirty

What is getting one's hands dirty the present participle and gerund of?
Getting one's hands dirty is the present participle and gerund of get one's hands dirty.

Words near getting one's hands dirty in the dictionary

  1. getting one's fingers into
  2. getting one's foot in the door
  3. getting one's freak on
  4. getting one's fuck on
  5. getting one's groove on
  6. getting one's hands dirty
  7. getting one's hands on
  8. getting one's head around
  9. getting one's head out of one's ass
  10. getting one's head out of the gutter
  11. getting one's head out one's ass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: getting one's hands dirty (page history and authors); 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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