Word.ws English Dictionary

eat out of someone's hand

eat out of someone's hand verb: to behave in a docile, submissive way towards someone.

Verb

eat out of someone's hand (third-person singular simple present eats out of someone's hand, present participle eating out of someone's hand, simple past ate out of someone's hand, past participle eaten out of someone's hand)

  1. (idiomatic) To behave in a docile, submissive way towards someone.
    • "And after all this," I remarked, "I suppose you were ready to eat out of his hand." "Don't be coarse, James. I don't know where you get these vulgar expressions from."1926, Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
    • When a woman has her husband eating out of her hand, says Washout, you can bet she also has him eating out of cans.1954 October 7, Earl Wilson, “Earl Wilson's Broadway”, in Sarasota Herald-Tribune, retrieved 20 Jul 2010, page 17

Forms of eat out of someone's hand

third-person singular presenteats out of someone's hand
present participleeating out of someone's hand
pastate out of someone's hand
past participleeaten out of someone's hand
alternative formeat from someone's hand

Origin of eat out of someone's hand

An allusion to the manner in which a tame animal can be fed.

Questions about eat out of someone's hand

What does eat out of someone's hand mean?
Eat out of someone's hand means to behave in a docile, submissive way towards someone.
What part of speech is eat out of someone's hand?
Eat out of someone's hand is a verb.
What is the past tense of eat out of someone's hand?
The past tense of eat out of someone's hand is ate out of someone's hand.

Words near eat out of someone's hand in the dictionary

  1. eat one's terms
  2. eat one's Wheaties
  3. eat one's words
  4. eat one's young
  5. eat out
  6. eat out of someone's hand
  7. eat out of the palm of someone's hand
  8. eat pussy
  9. eat shit
  10. eat someone alive
  11. eat someone for breakfast

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: eat out of someone'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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “eat out of someone's hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/eat_out_of_someone%27s_hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.