grease someone's palm

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

grease someone's palm (third-person singular simple present greases someone's palm, present participle greasing someone's palm, simple past and past participle greased someone's palm)

1. (idiomatic) To bribe a person.
   • 1891, Arthur Quiller-Couch, chapter 11, in The Blue Pavilions:

     I was never guilty of disloyalty to King Lewis, but I killed my wife's mother, pardieu!—which the judge seemed to think almost as vile, till I sent a friend to grease his palm with the last sou of my patrimony.

   • 2008 August 9, Tim Reynolds, “Traveller's tale”, in Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, retrieved 8 April 2009:

     We arrived at Almaty Airport, and from the moment the customs officer made it obvious in his fractured English that our entrance would be made easier if we greased his palm, we realised that all our Anglo-Saxon assumptions about how societies are run were not very relevant here.

Translations

to bribe

• Finnish: voidella (fi)
• French: graisser la patte (fr)
• Hindi: चाय-पानी (cāy-pānī, literally “tea-water”)
• Italian: ungere le ruote, pagare sottobanco
• Norman: graîssi la patte
• Russian: да́ть на ла́пу (ru) (dátʹ na lápu, literally “give onto a pad”), подма́зать (ru) (podmázatʹ, literally “to oil”)
• Spanish: untar (es), untar la mano

See also

• cross someone's palm
• grease payment