Meaning & Analysis
To apply a greasy or oily substance to a person's closed hand or fist.
Insights
Bribery and Corruption
The primary meaning is to bribe someone. The 'grease' is money, and applying it 'in the fist' refers to a covert payment made to influence a person's actions or decisions, ensuring a favorable outcome for the payer.
Illicit Influence
It represents the use of money to exert illicit influence and subvert justice or established procedures. The act of 'greasing' implies making a process that should be rigid or impartial become fluid and biased.
Transactional Immorality
The proverb frames a corrupt act as a simple, amoral transaction. It cynically suggests that integrity and official processes are merely mechanisms that can be 'lubricated' with money to function more efficiently for one's own ends.
Historical Corruption
The proverb offers a cynical commentary on the historical prevalence of bribery, with quotations from the 16th and 17th centuries showing its normalization in legal and administrative contexts. The use of terms like 'oyle of gold' and 'red oyntment' reveals a society where corruption was an acknowledged, if illicit, part of transactions.
Psychological Euphemism
The phrase employs a powerful euphemism, substituting the harsh reality of 'bribery' with the more functional, almost mechanical term 'greasing'. This linguistic softening reveals a psychological tendency to downplay immoral acts, framing them as practical necessities to overcome bureaucratic friction.
Material Symbolism
The imagery of 'grease' as a lubricant is highly effective. It suggests that money can make difficult or 'stuck' processes move smoothly, quietly, and with less resistance, perfectly capturing the functional and secretive nature of a bribe designed to subvert due process.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
The core of the proverb is a metaphor where 'grease' represents money and the 'fist' symbolizes the recipient's power and agency, creating a vivid and lasting image of bribery.
Euphemism
The phrase 'grease the fist' acts as a euphemism for bribery, softening the corrupt act by describing it in practical, mechanical terms rather than moral ones.
Imagery
The physical act of greasing a hand creates a strong, visceral image of a secretive and morally questionable transaction, enhancing the proverb's memorability and impact.
Synecdoche
The 'fist' is a synecdoche, representing the entire person and their official capacity or authority. The bribe is not just for the hand, but for the power it wields.
Transcription
Quotations
Wyth golde and grotes they grese my hande, In stede of ryght that wronge may stande.
Anointing their clarkes in the hand with double fee.
If you have argent . . I dare not say Gold, but red oyntment to grease them in the fist withall, than your sute shall want no furtherance.
Ought his gowtry fists then first with gold to be greased?
To grease his fist withall.
They'll part, Sir, with no bookes, without the hand-gout Be oyld.
You must haue them [your hands] nointed with the oyle of gold, before you can fall to any good worke.
To greaze in the fist, or give bribes.
To grease the hands, viz. to bribe one.
*That is to put money in his hand, to see or bribe him.
You must greaze him in the fist with a new Fee.
[As in 1671 Cl.]
Cross References
- See St., no. 2084.
- O27 Oil of angels
- S682 To grease a fat sow in the tail
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
Used under CC BY-NC 3.0.