to wax the dolphin
- idiom
- Offensive
- He joked that he needed a moment to wax the dolphin after watching the explicit scene.
Examples
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The comedian used the phrase wax the dolphin in his stand-up routine, and the audience burst out laughing.
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He likes to wax the dolphin in private.
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Some people use creative euphemisms like wax the dolphin to talk about private matters.
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Don't wax the dolphin while others are around!
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After watching that movie, he joked that he needed to wax the dolphin privately.
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In his friend group, they often use the term wax the dolphin to refer to personal moments.
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He mentioned he might wax the dolphin later when he had some alone time.
Synonyms
107
7.7
Touch your own private parts for sexual pleasure
91
9.9
To touch your own private parts to get sexual pleasure
24
9.9
To touch your own private parts to get sexual pleasure, usually by a man
1
9.9
To touch a man's penis to make him sexually excited
1
9.9
To touch your own penis to make yourself sexually excited
To touch his own penis to feel sexual pleasure
Surface Forms
Morphology
wax + the + dolphin
The euphemistic sexual meaning ('to masturbate') cannot be derived from the literal constituents 'wax' and 'dolphin' — knowing 'wax' (e.g. to polish or cover) and 'dolphin' (the marine mammal) gives no clear route to this sense. This is a culture-specific slang euphemism and highly idiomatic, so an average B1 learner who knows the words would not predict the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Wax the dolphin may come from a silly picture of someone polishing a toy, with wax meaning to polish and dolphin as a playful stand-in for a man's private part. That's why people use it as a joking way to say 'to masturbate'.