Word.ws English Dictionary

have one's hand in the till

have one's hand in the till verb: to embezzle, to steal from one's place of business.

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

Synonyms of have one's hand in the till

Forms of have one's hand in the till

third-person singular presenthas one's hand in the till
present participlehaving one's hand in the till
past participlehad one's hand in the till
pasthad one's hand in the till

Origin of have one's hand in the till

From the most basic form of the crime: a shop assistant removing cash from the register.

Questions about have one's hand in the till

What does have one's hand in the till mean?
Have one's hand in the till means to embezzle, to steal from one's place of business.
What part of speech is have one's hand in the till?
Have one's hand in the till is a verb.
What is the past tense of have one's hand in the till?
The past tense of have one's hand in the till is had one's hand in the till.

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

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-have one's hand in the till.ogg.

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