pink-handed

pink-handed adjective: white-collar; working at a desk job as opposed to manual labor.

Adjective

pink-handed (comparative more pink-handed, superlative most pink-handed)

White-collar; working at a desk job as opposed to manual labor.
- I know the pink-handed types who get jobs like this interviewer's got, and I know what he's trying to do to me.1973, Ralph Hurne, The Yellow Jersey, →ISBN, page 202
- The Western conceit is important because it allows Hernhuter to contrast the flat and tame backyard to the precipitous canyon and the colorful dialect of Nest with the bland generalizations of the pink-handed psychiatrist.1994, Robert Murray Davis, Playing Cowboys: Low Culture and High Art in the Western, →ISBN, page 100
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pink, handed.: having hands that are pink.
- Squat and gnome-like it looked, silhouetted against the dying fire in the western sky; an odd, elfin-eared, pink-handed, hunchbacked manikin with a tail.1913, F. St. Mars, The Prowlers, page 102
- He was pink-cheeked, pink-handed and pink-nosed, all of which combined with his delft-blue eyes to make him look like a mature kewpie.1963, Catherine Gaskin, Richard Bach, Ernest Kellogg Gann, Reader's digest condensed books: volume 4

pink-handed (comparative more pink-handed, superlative most pink-handed)

With clear evidence of guilt, red-handed.
- Several major ISPs have been caught red-handed (or perhaps pink-handed) making agreements with known spammers.2000 December 25, Ed Foster, “Stats show backbone provider UUNet seems to be biggest spam haven”, in InfoWorld, volume 22, numbers 52-1, page 51
- 'Hence you closed it as soon as I entered and are exhibiting facial capillary dilation and blush response, consistent with what I suspect matches the human phrase “caught red- or rather pink-handed”.'2011, Keith Mansfield, Battle for Earth: Johnny Mackintosh 2, →ISBN

Lode mine investors were often distant financiers: soft, pink-handed men who earned their livings with pens, not hammers.2011, Keith Heyer Meldahl, Rough-Hewn Land: A Geologic Journey from California to the Rocky Mountains, →ISBN, page 32:
Pink-faced and pink-handed, Peter leaned over his wife's legs.2014, R. V. Cassill, Doctor Cobb's Game: A Novel, →ISBN:
My friend insists her purple house is where she caught a poacher in her yard, pink-handed, in floodlights she installed after she learned new birds of Featherstone would flock no more.2011, David Clewell, Taken Somehow By Surprise, →ISBN, page 18:

What does pink-handed mean?: Pink-handed means white-collar; working at a desk job as opposed to manual labor.
How do you use pink-handed in a sentence?: Lode mine investors were often distant financiers: soft, pink-handed men who earned their livings with pens, not hammers.
What part of speech is pink-handed?: Pink-handed can be an adjective or an adverb.

Adapted from Wiktionary: pink-handed (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-pink-handed.oga.

Cite this entry: “pink-handed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pink-handed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.