Word.ws English Dictionary

had one's hand in the till

had one's hand in the till is the simple past and past participle of have one's hand in the till.

Meaning of have one's hand in the till

Verb

have one's hand in the till (third-person singular simple present has one's hand in the till, present participle having one's hand in the till, simple past and past participle had one's hand in the till)

  1. (UK, idiomatic) To embezzle, to steal from one's place of business.
    • Francis Urquhart: You've been a bit of a bad lad, haven't you, Roger?
      Roger O'Neill: What?
      FU: You've had your hand in the till.
      RO: Francis, you're joking!
      FU: Your expenses are paid by Central Office, aren't they? But you've been claiming quite large sums from the advertising agency as well. It's...1990, House of Cards, season 1, episode 1

Questions about had one's hand in the till

What is had one's hand in the till the simple past and past participle of?
Had one's hand in the till is the simple past and past participle of have one's hand in the till.

Words near had one's hand in the till in the dictionary

  1. had one's fingers all thumbs
  2. had one's fingers in many pies
  3. had one's fingers in the till
  4. had one's fingers on the pulse
  5. had one's guard up
  6. had one's hand in the till
  7. had one's hand out
  8. had one's handful
  9. had one's hands full
  10. had one's head read
  11. had one's head up one's ass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: had one's hand in the till (page history and authors); have one's hand in the till (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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