Word.ws English Dictionary

deal a hand

deal a hand verb: to distribute a hand of cards at random to a player.

Verb

deal a hand (third-person singular simple present deals a hand, present participle dealing a hand, simple past and past participle dealt a hand)

  1. To distribute a hand of cards at random to a player.
  2. (idiomatic) To assign circumstances in life to someone.
    • Yeah, this Caucasian country was dealt a very poor geographic hand.

Forms of deal a hand

third-person singular presentdeals a hand
present participledealing a hand
past participledealt a hand
pastdealt a hand

Origin of deal a hand

From the sense of a hand in card games, as the outcome of a game depends on the hands that are dealt.

Words formed from deal a hand

Questions about deal a hand

What does deal a hand mean?
Deal a hand means to distribute a hand of cards at random to a player.
What part of speech is deal a hand?
Deal a hand is a verb.
What is the past tense of deal a hand?
The past tense of deal a hand is dealt a hand.

Words near deal a hand in the dictionary

  1. Deakins
  2. Deaks
  3. deal
  4. deal a bad hand
  5. deal a good hand
  6. deal a hand
  7. deal board
  8. deal boards
  9. deal breaker
  10. deal breakers
  11. deal dough

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deal 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-deal a hand.ogg.

Cite this entry: “deal a hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deal_a_hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.