Word.ws English Dictionary

give with one hand and take away with the other

give with one hand and take away with the other verb: to help in one way but proceed to harm in another.

Verb

give with one hand and take away with the other (third-person singular simple present gives with one hand and takes away with the other, present participle giving with one hand and taking away with the other, simple past gave with one hand and took away with the other, past participle given with one hand and taken away with the other)

  1. To help in one way but proceed to harm in another.
    • Taking with one hand what it gave with the other, the Court curtails Ramoss effects by expunging Teagues provision for watershed rules.2021, Edwards v. Vannoy (U.S. Supreme Court No. 19–5807), Justice Kagan dissenting

Forms of give with one hand and take away with the other

third-person singular presentgives with one hand and takes away with the other
present participlegiving with one hand and taking away with the other
pastgave with one hand and took away with the other
past participlegiven with one hand and taken away with the other

Questions about give with one hand and take away with the other

What does give with one hand and take away with the other mean?
Give with one hand and take away with the other means to help in one way but proceed to harm in another.
What part of speech is give with one hand and take away with the other?
Give with one hand and take away with the other is a verb.
What is the past tense of give with one hand and take away with the other?
The past tense of give with one hand and take away with the other is gave with one hand and took away with the other.

Words near give with one hand and take away with the other in the dictionary

  1. give way
  2. give way sign
  3. give way signs
  4. give weight
  5. give what for
  6. give with one hand and take away with the other
  7. give your head a wobble
  8. give zero fucks
  9. give-and-go
  10. give-and-gos
  11. give-and-take

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give with one hand and take away with the other (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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Cite this entry: “give with one hand and take away with the other.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/give_with_one_hand_and_take_away_with_the_other. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.