hand it out
Old British underworld and criminal slang meaning to harm or kill someone — to deliver violence as casually as handing something over.
Definitions
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.
Word on the street was they'd hand it out to anyone who crossed them.
Comments
(slang) To harm or kill (someone).
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- hand out76%
(slang) To try to impress (someone) with deceptions.
- hand it to76%
(slang) To yell at, demean or tell off (someone).
- hand it to73%
(slang) To credit or congratulate (someone); to give (someone) appropriate respect for something they have done.
- hand out70%
(transitive) To distribute; to give out, either by hand or as if so (figuratively).