Word.ws English Dictionary

hands down

hands down adverb: without much effort; easily. Also the third-person singular simple present indicative of hand down.

Adverb

hands down (comparative more hands down, superlative most hands down)

  1. (idiomatic) Without much effort; easily.
  2. (idiomatic) By a large margin (in a game or contest).
  3. (idiomatic) Without question; undoubtedly.
    • That is a rather difficult task, hands down.
  4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hands, down.

Also used as

hands down is also the third-person singular simple present indicative of hand down.

hands down meaning in Arabic

hands down in Arabic

without much effort, easily
بِسُهُولَة bisuhūla

Forms of hands down

comparativemore hands down
superlativemost hands down
alternative formhands-down

Origin of hands down

The origin of this colloquialism seems to have its roots in mid-19th century horseracing. When a horse jockey is nearing the finish line far ahead of the competition, "with victory certain", he could drop his hands, relaxing his hold on the reins, and "still win the race". By the late 19th century the phrase was being used in non-racing contexts to mean 'with no trouble at all.'

See hand down.

Questions about hands down

What does hands down mean?
Hands down means without much effort; easily.
What is hands down in Arabic?
Hands down in Arabic is بِسُهُولَة (bisuhūla). See Hands down meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is hands down?
Hands down is an adverb.

Words near hands down in the dictionary

  1. handrubs
  2. hands
  3. hands around
  4. hands away
  5. hands back
  6. hands down
  7. hands in
  8. hands in cookie jars
  9. hands in one's checks
  10. hands in one's dinner pail
  11. hands it out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hands down (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-hands down.ogg.

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