Word.ws English Dictionary

change hands

change hands verb: to become the property of someone else; to be bought or sold.

Verb

change hands (third-person singular simple present changes hands, present participle changing hands, simple past and past participle changed hands)

  1. (idiomatic) To become the property of someone else; to be bought or sold.
    • The food got a lot worse after the restaurant changed hands.
    • The line has since changed hands several times, and is now to re-open as a preserved railway (a railway for leisure only), running vintage diesels and electrics, but with the aim of restoring steam.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 210
    Synonyms:
    trade hands

change hands meaning in Tamil and Vietnamese

change hands in Tamil

to become the property of someone else.
கைமாறு kaimāṟu

change hands in Vietnamese

to become the property of someone else.
thay tay, đổi chủ

Synonyms of change hands

Forms of change hands

third-person singular presentchanges hands
present participlechanging hands
past participlechanged hands
pastchanged hands

Questions about change hands

What does change hands mean?
Change hands means to become the property of someone else; to be bought or sold.
What is change hands in Tamil?
Change hands in Tamil is கைமாறு (kaimāṟu). See Change hands meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is change hands?
Change hands is a verb.
What is the past tense of change hands?
The past tense of change hands is changed hands.

Words near change hands in the dictionary

  1. change bowlers
  2. change collars
  3. change course
  4. change down
  5. change hand
  6. change hands
  7. change horses in mid-stream
  8. change horses in midstream
  9. Change Islands
  10. change key
  11. change keys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: change hands (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-change hands.ogg.

Cite this entry: “change hands.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/change_hands. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.