Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to haul one's ashes

to haul one's ashes

9.9
To go home when you are very tired after a long day
  • idiom
  • Informal
translation icon : volver a casa
  • After working a double shift, I couldn't wait to haul my ashes home.

Examples

  • After work, he hauled his ashes home.

  • By the time the movie ended, I was ready to haul my ashes back to bed.

  • It's getting late—maybe we should haul our ashes before midnight.

  • I need to haul my ashes after this long day!

  • After working a long day at the office, I was eager to haul my ashes home.

  • After the concert, we were so exhausted that we decided to haul our ashes back to the hotel.

  • Feeling drained from the meeting, she just wanted to haul her ashes home and relax.

Antonyms

to remain
∞ 1.0

To stay in the same place or state and not change

Surface Forms

haul one's ashes infinitive
hauled one's ashes past
hauled one's ashes past participle
hauling one's ashes present participle
hauls one's ashes third person singular

Morphology

haul + one + ash

The literal constituents ('haul' = drag/pull, 'one's' = possessive, 'ashes' = burnt residue) do not compose to the meaning 'go home' — the phrase is an informal, idiomatic/euphemistic usage whose sense cannot be derived from the parts. It is a colloquial or regional variant (related to expressions like 'haul one's ass') and therefore unpredictable for a B1 learner who only knows the individual words.

Etymology

Haul one's ashes may come from the rude saying 'haul one's ass'; here haul means to pull or move yourself and ashes is a softer word that sounds like 'ass'. So the picture is of someone dragging themselves home after a long, tiring time, and that's why it means 'to go home', often when very tired.