Dirty-handed
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Having unwashed hands.
"Then the dirty-handed society went off the wash, followed by the Professor, trying to calm the anxiety of Rob, who had been told by Tommy that all water was full of invisible pollywogs."
- 2 Working-class, rough or boorish
"As it was, the whole family loved it, and the Doctor was never better inspired than when he narrated its imaginary story and drew the character of its successive masters, from the Hebrew merchant who had re-edified its walls after the sack of the town, and past the mysterious engraver of the runes, down to the long-headed, dirty-handed boor from whom he had himself acquired it at a ruinous expense."
- 3 Guilty, corrupt
"There were plenty of dirty-handed men in the world to do dirty business; and Will protested to himself that his share in bringing Mr. Brooke through would be quite innocent."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Then the dirty-handed society went off the wash, followed by the Professor, trying to calm the anxiety of Rob, who had been told by Tommy that all water was full of invisible pollywogs."
Etymology
From dirty + handed.
Related phrases
More for "dirty-handed"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.