bear a hand
bear a hand verb: to make haste; to help quickly.
Verb
bear a hand (third-person singular simple present bears a hand, present participle bearing a hand, simple past bore a hand, past participle borne a hand)
- To make haste; to help quickly.
- Hawkins, neither you nor I are much account at the shooting; we’ll stand by to load and bear a hand.1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
- The Old Wife is ready to bear a hand in the work of harvesting.1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 7
Forms of bear a hand
| third-person singular present | bears a hand |
|---|---|
| present participle | bearing a hand |
| past | bore a hand |
| past participle | borne a hand |
| alternative form | bear-a-hand |
Questions about bear a hand
- What does bear a hand mean?
- Bear a hand means to make haste; to help quickly.
- What part of speech is bear a hand?
- Bear a hand is a verb.
- What is the past tense of bear a hand?
- The past tense of bear a hand is bore a hand.
Words near bear a hand in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bear a 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-bear a hand.ogg.
Cite this entry: “bear a hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bear_a_hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.