sacar el ascua con mano ajena
Meaning: To get someone else to do one's dirty work or take the blame for one's own wrongdoing.
Language: Spanish
Literally: to draw the hot coal with another's hand
Category: Daily Life
Origin: The image pictures someone using another person as a tool to retrieve something dangerous and hot, thereby keeping one's own hands clean.
More idioms — Daily Life
- contante y sonante — Money in ready cash; actual payment rather than promises or credit.
- de Pascuas a Ramos — Once in a blue moon; extremely rarely or at great intervals.
- Dampf ablassen — To release pent-up emotion or frustration.
- aus dem Off — to speak or act without drawing attention to oneself, anonymously or from the background.
- etwas auf die lange Bank schieben — to postpone or delay something indefinitely.
- in die Quere kommen — to interfere with someone, to get in the way or obstruct.
More Spanish idioms
- arrimar el ascua a su sardina — To arrange matters selfishly in one's own favor; to look out for oneself at others' expen…
- lobo con piel de cordero — A person who appears harmless or trustworthy but is actually dangerous or deceitful.
- dar coces contra el aguijón — To resist or rebel futilely against something stronger or inevitable.
- no ganar para sustos — To be plagued by constant troubles and misfortunes; to suffer setback after setback.
- perder la chaveta — To go crazy; to lose one's grip on sanity or self-control.
- con lo puesto — With nothing but the clothes on one's back; in a state of complete destitution.