Definition
To engage in a simple, useless activity that anyone would reasonably know how to perform.
To engage in a futile activity.
To go away; get lost; go to hell; to waste one's own time (with some other meaningless task) rather than waste the speaker's time with something equally irritating or pointless.
Origins
Of 19th-century origin. Used as an example both of an activity so simple that almost anyone could do it and of an activity so pointless that only a fool would do it.
In Context
- ""Bishop McKillup lives there. He's got only three wives, and they three all put together don’t know enough to pound sand with a mallet, with a receipt on the handle." For which striking symbol of imbecility I should have given Jake a good deal of credit, if I had not heard him using it several times before as a regular stock expression"
- "[…] Without men on the ground, we'll be pounding sand.""
- "He told Shelton we needed to "unleash holy hell." “We're not just going to pound sand,” he added."
- "All you do is complain. Why don't you go pound sand up your ass and stop bothering the line staff."
- ""The price to us was going to be $3 million, and we had four months to pay before the Licensing 6.0 deadline. We told Microsoft to go pound sand.""
See Also
- enough sense to pound sand into a rathole