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shake the dust from one's feet

Idioms  

  1. Depart in a hurry, especially from an unpleasant situation; also, leave forever. For example, I couldn't wait to shake the dust from my feet; I never wanted to see either of them again. This metaphoric term, alluding to moving one's feet fast enough to shake off dust, appears in several books of the Bible. [c. 1600]

Example Sentences

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Shaking the Dust from the Feet.—To ceremonially shake the dust from one's feet as a testimony against another was understood by the Jews to symbolize a cessation of fellowship and a renunciation of all responsibility for consequences that might follow.

From Project Gutenberg

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.