Slang dictionary
honeymoon handshake
[huhn-ee-moon hand-sheyk]
What does honeymoon handshake mean?
Honeymoon handshake is a humorous, vaguely defined sex act apparently made up by the sitcom Modern Family.
Where does honeymoon handshake come from?
The honeymoon handshake appears to have been invented for a November 2016 episode of Modern Family. A widow becomes attracted to a character, Luke (Nolan Gould), and asks him to do push-ups as she puts on her wedding dress. When Luke reveals this, another character exclaims: “Wow, she jumped right into the Honeymoon Handshake.”
Are you ever going to tell us what a honeymoon handshake is, @DannyZuker? I've been in this wedding dress for 3 days, waiting for magic.
— Brandon Boyce (@Brandon__Boyce) December 3, 2016
Beyond the subtle implication of sexuality, the show never reveals what exactly the honeymoon handshake is. The name is modeled after other humorously named fictional sex acts, à la the Old King Clancy on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Honeymoon in this case alludes to the celebratory trip or period of time after a marriage.
The show’s widespread fans have chimed in with their own definitions, however. Immediately after the episode aired, one person defined honeymoon handshake on Urban Dictionary as when a couple stimulates each other manually on their wedding night because they are too tired from the day for intercourse.
Jumped straight to the honeymoon handshake 😂
— McDreamy (@tundeeii) December 5, 2016
Examples of honeymoon handshake
Who uses honeymoon handshake?
The honeymoon handshake is almost exclusively used—whenever it does see any use—in reference to the Modern Family episode. Viewers delighted in the phrase …
Honeymoon handshake, Russians, and Team 🍊 Juice. This episode is one of the funniest #ModernFamily episodes ever. 👏🏼😂
— Jana (@DelightfulDame) December 1, 2016
… or pondered what it meant, exactly.
I just saw a funny clip on modern family. The honeymoon handshake. Is that a real thing or made up thing. Lmfao😂😂
— John ❤IPO/KNVP Dogsports (@jregterink1) March 3, 2017
Honeymoon handshake sees very occasional other uses as a nonce term for some undefined, post-wedding sexual act, or as an agreement between two people or parties during a metaphorical honeymoon period.
What's a Honeymoon Handshake? Lol #ModernFamily
— Sara (@sm_garber) December 1, 2016
Note
This is not meant to be a formal definition of honeymoon handshake like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of honeymoon handshake that will help our users expand their word mastery.