handcuff
/ˈhændˌkʌf/
handcuff noun: one ring of a locking fetter for the hand or one pair.
Noun
handcuff (plural handcuffs)
- One ring of a locking fetter for the hand or one pair.
Verb
handcuff (third-person singular simple present handcuffs, present participle handcuffing, simple past and past participle handcuffed)
- To apply handcuffs to someone.
- The sheriff had brought along all the handcuffs necessary, and in a few seconds he had handcuffed Koswell. He threw a pair of the steel bracelets to Dick and another pair to Tom, and the Rovers had the satisfaction of handcuffing Josiah Crabtree and Tad Sobber. Then the sheriff made prisoners of...1912, Arthur M. Winfield, The Rover Boys in the Air
- The sheriff’s office released a compilation of bodycam footage Friday from deputies at the scene that shows them handcuffing Earl and pinning him down for more than 20 minutes as he struggles and repeatedly shouts for help.2024 September 30, Chelsea Bailey, “‘Take his pulse, he’s blue’: Bodycam footage shows fatal encounter between epileptic Indiana man and first responders”, in CNN
- Synonyms:
- manacle
- to restrain or restrict.
- Dang, I’m handcuffed by these regulations. I’d like to help but it’d be illegal.
- After all, since our marriage has proved a childless one, the only reason for our submitting to be handcuffed to one another, now that our hearts are no longer in the arrangement, is gone.1880, George Bernard Shaw, chapter XVII, in The Irrational Knot
handcuff meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
handcuff in Hindi
- ring of a locking fetter for the hand
- हथकड़ी hathkaṛī
handcuff in Tamil
- ring of a locking fetter for the hand
- கைவிலங்கு kaivilaṅku
handcuff in Urdu
- ring of a locking fetter for the hand
- ہَتْھکَڑی hathkaṛī
handcuff in Bengali
- ring of a locking fetter for the hand
- হাতকড়া hatkoṛa
More languagesFewer languages
- handcuff in Malayalam
- വിലങ്ങ് vilaṅṅŭ, കൈവിലങ്ങ് kaivilaṅṅŭ
- handcuff in Kannada
- ಕಯ್ಕೋಳ, ಕಯ್ಗೋಳ, ಕೈಕೋಳ, ಕೈಗೋಳ
- handcuff in Pashto
- اتکړۍ atkaṛǝy, ولچک walčǝk, هټکرۍ haṭakrǝy, هتوړۍ hatoṛǝy
- handcuff in Tagalog
- pangaw, posas
- handcuff in Arabic
- صَفَد ṣafad, أَصْفَاد ʔaṣfād
- handcuff in Malay
- gari
- handcuff in Indonesian
- gari, borgol
- handcuff in Thai
- กุญแจมือ gun-jɛɛ-mʉʉ
- handcuff in Vietnamese
- còng, còng tay
- handcuff in Myanmar
- လက်ထိတ် lakhtit
Examples of handcuff in a sentence
- The sheriff had brought along all the handcuffs necessary, and in a few seconds he had handcuffed Koswell.1912, Arthur M. Winfield, The Rover Boys in the Air:
- In fact, as he admitted with a grin, it handcuffed him.2016 February 20, “Obituary: Antonin Scalia: Always right”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 01 Dec 2020:
Synonyms of handcuff
Forms of handcuff
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | handcuffs |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | handcuffs |
| present participle | handcuffing |
| past participle | handcuffed |
| past | handcuffed |
Origin of handcuff
From hand + cuff (“end of shirtsleeve”). Possibly an adaptation of Middle English handcops (“shackles for the hand, handcuffs”), from Old English handcops, from hand + cops, cosp (“fetter, chains”), but due to a lack of continuity (centuries between Old English and the modern term), generally analyzed as a re-invention. Nominal form first appears c. 1591 in the publications of John Florio. Verbal form first appears c. 1649.
Words formed from handcuff
Phrases with handcuff
Questions about handcuff
- What does handcuff mean?
- Handcuff means one ring of a locking fetter for the hand or one pair.
- What is handcuff in Hindi?
- Handcuff in Hindi is हथकड़ी (hathkaṛī). See Handcuff meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use handcuff in a sentence?
- The sheriff had brought along all the handcuffs necessary, and in a few seconds he had handcuffed Koswell.
- What part of speech is handcuff?
- Handcuff can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce handcuff?
- Handcuff is pronounced /ˈhændˌkʌf/.
- What is the plural of handcuff?
- The plural of handcuff is handcuffs.
Words near handcuff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: handcuff (page history and authors); handcuff (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-us-handcuff.ogg.
Cite this entry: “handcuff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handcuff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.