touch grass

English

A person touching grass.

Alternative forms

• touch some grass

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Verb

touch grass (third-person singular simple present touches grass, present participle touching grass, simple past and past participle touched grass)

1. (Internet slang, derogatory, often dismissal) To spend time outside, off of the Internet. Used in the imperative to suggest that someone is out of touch with reality, and should gain some real-world perspective.
   • 2022 January 9, Baxter, “Send them back to school!!”, in or.politics‎^[1] (Usenet):

     Lifeboat isn't real life. Go outside. Touch grass. Or seaweed; whatever's down there.

   • 2022 April 24, plateshutoverlock, “The brain broth boilith over”, in alt.alt‎^[2] (Usenet):

     in the words of a random anon - go touch grass. im done being patient with you and im done being nice to you. is this what you fucking wanted? to lie and slander and generally be a cunt until i snapped?

   • 2023 January 18, Annie Rauwerda, “Wikipedia's Redesign Is Barely Noticeable. That's the Point.”, in Slate‎^[3], archived from the original on 2023-06-09:

     To an outsider, the meticulous, sometimes combative arguments about, say, moving a button five pixels to the left seem pointless. I beg of thee, please, touch grass! But to many, Wikipedia is sort of a home on the internet. And people want to live somewhere nice.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see touch,‎ grass.

Translations

to spend time outside

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• French: toucher de l’herbe (fr)
• German: an die frische Luft gehen

See also

• get a life