wash one's hands of

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English

Etymology

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.”

Pronunciation

Verb

wash one's hands of (third-person singular simple present washes one's hands of, present participle washing one's hands of, simple past and past participle washed one's hands of)

  1. (transitive, idiomatic) To absolve oneself of responsibility or future blame for (something); to refuse to have any further involvement with (something).
    Synonyms: disclaim, disown; see also Thesaurus:repudiate

Related terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , 1611, →OCLC, Matthew 27:24, column 1: “When Pilate ſaw that he could preuaile nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, hee tooke water, and waſhed his handes before the multitude, ſaying, I am innocent of the blood of this iuſt perſon: ſee yee to it.”.
  2. ^ to wash one’s hands of, phrase” under “wash, v.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2023; “wash one’s hands of, phrase”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading