wet job

English

Noun

wet job (plural wet jobs)

1. (euphemistic) A covert assassination performed by government operatives.
   • 2003, Robert Young Pelton, Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places: 5th Edition (Robert Young Pelton the World's Most Dangerous Places), Collins, →ISBN, page 112:

     Like the Navy SEALs (who often work in conjunction with the Delta Force), Delta Force can go anywhere, anytime; they just leave the wet jobs to SEAL Team 6-the navy's version of Delta Force.

   • 2004, Gayle Lynds, The Coil: A Novel, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 53:

     Being a shocked witness in Lisbon to the Carnivore's last bloody wet job

   • 2006, Gayle Lynds, The Last Spymaster, St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 30:

     But as soon as the janitor saw Tice, he would have known he had the wrong man and should have and should have withdrawn or attempted a live capture to find out where Theosopholis was. Instead, everything about his style announced wet job. He was assigned to liquidate Tice, and maybe only Tice.

2. (figuratively) A vicious attack (on someone's reputation, ideals etc.); a hatchet job.
   • 2011, Jeremy Harding, “Diary”, in London Review of Books, 33.VII:

     The following year – the year of lawyering dangerously, at least at the LRB – saw Hitchens’s wet job on Henry Kissinger (22 October 1992). As he does with many of his subjects, he walked straight up to this one and dropped the guillotine, likening the book under review – an authorised biography – to ‘the profile of a serial murderer’.

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Norwegian: ^{(please verify)} våtjobb m
• Swedish: ^{(please verify)} våtjobb n

See also

• wet work