hands
1 Britishplural noun
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power or keeping
your welfare is in his hands
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Also called: handling. soccer the infringement of touching the ball with any part of the hand or arm
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to pass from the possession of one person or group to another
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freedom from guilt
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without effort; easily
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do not touch or interfere
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raise the hands above the level of the shoulders, an order usually given by an armed robber to a victim, etc
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to be completely occupied
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to be beset with problems
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to be wholly unable to act
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in protective care
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See join
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to seize or get possession of
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to beat up; assault
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to find
I just can't lay my hands on it anywhere
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Christianity to confirm or ordain by the imposition of hands
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for which one is no longer responsible
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for which one is responsible
I've got too much on my hands to help
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to spare
time on my hands
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no longer one's responsibility
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to give up in despair
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to have nothing more to do with
noun
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
We need more voices like Mr. Riley’s: Your life is in our own hands.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
"They dropped us off in one location and there were security personnel who they shook hands and laughed with," he told the BBC, asking not to be named.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Meanwhile, at a sports hall in Las Rozas de Madrid just outside the capital, the displaced sprawled on camp beds, held their heads in their hands and comforted pets as they awaited news.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
Hunt and partner Van Hoisington run a firm in Austin that does one thing: It buys long-dated U.S. government bonds when it believes inflation is headed down, and sits on its hands when it doesn’t.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
She clutched her hair in her hands for a moment.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
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"Hands washed. That's how the administration approached it."
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
Metallica and its management launched the All Within My Hands foundation in 2017 to give a proportion of its ticket sales to local and national charities.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
While Probst was hosting the “Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans” finale live, the challenges had been filmed in Fiji months prior.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
"Hands off May 1," read the poster of a hard-left activist at a May Day protest in Paris.
From Barron's ● May 1, 2026
And they high-fived and low-fived and back-fived, and Hands Down would laugh and laugh.
From "Maniac Magee" by Jerry Spinelli
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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.