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.

Related words

going Dutch, manojob, sexit, Old King Clancy

Where does honeymoon handshake come from?

Getty Images

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.”

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 MotherHoneymoon 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.

Examples of honeymoon handshake

Uhh oh. That means no more hugging and honeymoon handshakes. Trumps [sic] done messed that up.
@joylight62, June 2018
Prayer of a gate-crasher / Dear Lord, / because I am rash / find me a wedding to crash / & a hot groom with an ache / for a honeymoon handshake.
@JohanndeLange, May 2017
ABC
SEE MORE EXAMPLES

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 …

… or pondered what it meant, exactly.

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.

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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.