Word.ws English Dictionary

hat in hand

hat in hand adverb: with humility; in an apologetic or self-effacing fashion.

Adverb

hat in hand (not comparable)

  1. (idiomatic) With humility; in an apologetic or self-effacing fashion.
    • Hat in hand, the sailors stood deferentially in a semicircle before him.1849, Herman Melville, chapter 61, in Redburn: His First Voyage
    • "D'you think the proud English corporations are going to let you inside? Not them. The most you'll get will be the scraps that fall from their table, my poor Lazarus, and for these you'll have to go hat in hand to Dives."1915, John Buchan, chapter 5, in Salute to Adventurers

Forms of hat in hand

alternative formwith hat in hand
alternative formcap in hand

Questions about hat in hand

What does hat in hand mean?
Hat in hand means with humility; in an apologetic or self-effacing fashion.
What part of speech is hat in hand?
Hat in hand is an adverb.

Words near hat in hand in the dictionary

  1. Hat Creek
  2. hat dance
  3. hat dances
  4. hat hair
  5. hat head
  6. hat in hand
  7. hat over the windmill
  8. hat palm
  9. hat palms
  10. hat peach
  11. hat peaches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hat in 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-hat in hand.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hat in hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hat_in_hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.