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sit on one's hands

sit on one's hands idiom

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.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.