roll up one's sleeves

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roll up one's sleeves (third-person singular simple present rolls up one's sleeves, present participle rolling up one's sleeves, simple past and past participle rolled up one's sleeves)

1. (informal, idiomatic) To prepare to work.
   • 2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes quoting Steve Bruce, “Sunderland 2 - 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     "We could quite easily have folded today but thankfully they rolled up their sleeves and got back into it. We could even have won it. We had a couple of great opportunities but we just ran out of juice."

   • 2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     TNo more pomp and ceremony, the new pope seemed to be saying, but sleeves rolled up and joining the fight for social and economic justice.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see roll,‎ up,‎ one's,‎ sleeves.

• at the coal face
• in the trenches