Word.ws English Dictionary

back of one's hand

back of one's hand noun: a slap.

Noun

back of one's hand

  1. A slap.
    • "And have that boor D'Hérouville laugh? No! Let him give me the chance, and I will give him the back of my hand."1903, Harold MacGrath, chapter 13, in The Grey Cloak
  2. (broadly, figuratively, idiomatic) A display of disrespect or scorn.
    • "Out upon ye, Mr. Saddletree!" exclaimed David, . . . "out upon your General Assembly, and the back of my hand to your Court o' Session!"1818, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 11, in The Heart of Mid-Lothian
    • [A]nd the back of my hand to them that have come in the way, bringin' sorrow, an' desolation, an' misery on gentlefolks.1860, Anthony Trollope, chapter 32, in Castle Richmond

Questions about back of one's hand

What does back of one's hand mean?
Back of one's hand means a slap.
What part of speech is back of one's hand?
Back of one's hand is a noun.

Words near back of one's hand in the dictionary

  1. back o' beyond
  2. back o' Bourke
  3. back of beyond
  4. back of Godspeed
  5. back of house
  6. back of one's hand
  7. back of one's mind
  8. back of the book
  9. back of the net
  10. Back of the Wight
  11. back off

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: back of one's hand (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-back of one's hand.ogg.

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