from hand to hand
A traditional English idiom describing the passing of something — an object, idea, responsibility, or rumor — from one person to another in succession.
Definitions
A traditional English idiom describing the passing of something — an object, idea, responsibility, or rumor — from one person to another in succession. It evokes a chain of handoffs, whether literal (passing a document around a room) or figurative (a story spreading through a community). The phrase implies direct, personal transmission rather than broadcast communication, and carries a sense of something moving continuously through a social network.
The petition traveled from hand to hand through the entire office before it reached the manager's desk.
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(UK, idiomatic) From one individual to another.
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🇬🇧About British & Irish slang slang
UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
See all British & Irish slang slang on Slangora.
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(figurative) A situation where something is changed or misunderstood as a result of passing through successive people or processes.
- hand it to65%
(slang) To yell at, demean or tell off (someone).
- hand it out64%
Old British underworld and criminal slang meaning to harm or kill someone — to deliver violence as casually as handing something over. The euphemistic framing is darkly ironic; handing something out sounds almost generous, which makes the violent meaning hit harder. Like many criminal slang terms, it was designed to be understood in-group while sounding innocuous to outsiders.
- hand it to62%
(slang) To credit or congratulate (someone); to give (someone) appropriate respect for something they have done.