pound sand

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pound sand

Where it comes from

First use appears c. 1857 in a poem by the Scottish poet Alexander Smith. 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.

verb pounds sand · pounding sand · pounded sand

idiomatic, informal To engage in a simple, useless activity that anyone would reasonably know how to perform. "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
idiomatic, informal To engage in a futile activity. […] Without men on the ground, we'll be pounding sand."
Similar: get blood out of a stone, piss up a rope, pound dirt, pound salt, pound sand into a rathole
derogatory, idiomatic, slang 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. All you do is complain. Why don't you go pound sand up your ass and stop bothering the line staff.
Similar: get lost, go fly a kite, take a hike, kick rocks, fuck off

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MLA

"pound sand." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/pound%20sand. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

pound sand. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/pound%20sand

Chicago

"pound sand." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/pound%20sand.

BibTeX

@misc{pound_sand_2026,
  title = {pound sand},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/pound%20sand},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}