Word.ws English Dictionary

force someone's hand

force someone's hand verb: bring about a situation which necessitates an agent to act, often causing a plan to be executed prematurely.

Verb

force someone's hand (third-person singular simple present forces someone's hand, present participle forcing someone's hand, simple past and past participle forced someone's hand)

  1. (idiomatic) Bring about a situation which necessitates an agent to act, often causing a plan to be executed prematurely.

Forms of force someone's hand

third-person singular presentforces someone's hand
present participleforcing someone's hand
past participleforced someone's hand
pastforced someone's hand

Origin of force someone's hand

A metaphorical reference to card games.

Questions about force someone's hand

What does force someone's hand mean?
Force someone's hand means bring about a situation which necessitates an agent to act, often causing a plan to be executed prematurely.
What part of speech is force someone's hand?
Force someone's hand is a verb.
What is the past tense of force someone's hand?
The past tense of force someone's hand is forced someone's hand.

Words near force someone's hand in the dictionary

  1. force quit
  2. force quits
  3. force quitted
  4. force quitting
  5. force someone's back to the wall
  6. force someone's hand
  7. force the pace
  8. force the voucher
  9. force-fed
  10. force-feed
  11. force-feeding

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: force 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.

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

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