pound sand

• pound dirt

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pound sand (third-person singular simple present pounds sand, present participle pounding sand, simple past and past participle pounded sand)

1. (idiomatic) To engage in a futile activity.
   • 2010, Eric Blehm, The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan, HarperCollins (2010), →ISBN, page 44:

     […] Without men on the ground, we'll be pounding sand."

2. (idiomatic, dismissal) To go away; get lost; go to hell.
   • 2003 March 15, Christopher Koch, "Showdown at the 6.0 Corral", CIO:

     "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."

• For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:pound sand.

• (do something futile): get blood from a stone, piss up a rope
• (go away): get lost, go fly a kite, take a hike, fuck off