grease someone's palm
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
So McCloy greased your palm a bit to walk home with Hatton and catch him unawares.
Unfortunately, you won't get anything done in that office unless you grease someone's palm.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “grease someone's palm” mean?
Bribe someone to get special treatment Literally: apply grease to someone's palm
Is “grease someone's palm” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.