dirty work

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dirty work (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) One or more unpleasant tasks, assignments, or employment duties, especially those of a disreputable or illicit nature.
   • 1848, [Elizabeth Gaskell], chapter II, in Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life. […] (Chapman and Hall’s Series of Original Works of Fiction, Biography, and General Literature), volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC:

     [A] sort of little back kitchen, where dirty work, such as washing up dishes, might be done.

   • 1893, Horatio Alger, chapter 21, in Cast Upon the Breakers:

     "I am no telltale," said James scornfully. […] Jasper urged James to give information about Rodney, but he steadily refused. "I leave others to do such dirty work," he said.

   • 1917, Upton Sinclair, chapter 11, in King Coal:

     [M]any a business-man can say he doesn't do dirty work, because he has others do it for him.

   • 1936, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], “Shooting an Elephant”, in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays, London: Secker and Warburg, published 1950, →OCLC, pages 1–2:

     In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos—all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.

   • 2003 February 4, Elaine Shannon [et al.], “At Home, the FBI Keeps Tabs on Iraqis”, in Time‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 January 2011:

     US experts believe the Iraqi intelligence service will set the plots in motion, then recruit or extort amateurs to do the dirty work.

   • 2025 June 17, Friedrich Merz, quotee, “Chancellor Merz: Israel does "dirty work" for all of us”, in ZDFheute Nachrichten‎^[2]; English translation from “'Doing the dirty work for us': Merz praises Israel over Iran attacks”, in CGTN Europe‎^[3], 2025 June 18, of original in German:

     This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us.

     [original: Das ist die Drecksarbeit, die Israel macht für uns alle.]

• get one's hands dirty

• “dirty work”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.