sit on one's hands

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Idioms and Phrases

Take no action; also, fail to applaud. For example, Instead of making a new will, George is sitting on his hands , or The matinee audience was apathetic, sitting on their hands for the whole performance . Both usages of this metaphor for passivity date from the first half of the 1900s.

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April 19, 2024tortuous

[tawr-choo-uhs ]

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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