wash one's hands
/ˌwɔʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.08 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
1
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see wash, one's, hands.
verb
To go to the toilet.
verb
To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for; to refuse to have any further involvement with.
Example Sentences
- "Be sure to wash your hands before preparing food."
- "If you're healthy and you know it, wash your hands! If you're healthy and you know it, wash your hands!"
- "Sharp[er]. […] Mony is but Dirt, Sir Joſeph—Mere Dirt. / Sir Jo[seph Wittoll]. But I profeſs, it is a Dirt I have vvaſhed my Hands of at preſent; I have laid it all out upon my Back."
- "'Then I vvaſh my Hands of you,' cries the Doctor, 'and I deſire you to pay me for the Trouble I have had already.[…].'"
- "He had entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, and it had become ours."
- "It was no affair of his; he had long ago washed his hands of the whole matter, and left things to take their chance."
Etymology
The figurative sense comes from the account in Matthew 27:24 of the Bible in which Pontius Pilate, unwilling to condemn Jesus who has committed no crime but whose crucifixion the crowd has called for, symbolically washes his hands in public and says (according to the King James Version; spelling modernized): “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it.” Another literal and figurative usage of the expression can be traced to Deuteronomy 21:6 where the elders of Israel are commanded to "wash their hands" as part of a ceremonial absolution ritual initiated upon the discovery of a corpse outside the jurisdiction of any city.
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌwɔʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z/
- British English: /ˌwɒʃ wʌnz ˈhæn(d)z/