Word.ws English Dictionary

have one's hand out

have one's hand out verb: to request benefits, especially monetary ones and especially if not entitled to them.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To request benefits, especially monetary ones and especially if not entitled to them.
    • Whenever there was an appropriations bill, he always had his hand out for his guys.
    • Mr. Lombardo told him Union City “was probably the most graft‐ridden community in New Jersey—everybody had their hand out.”1978 March 31, Joseph F. Sullivan, “Witness Says He Heard of Plotting To Tie Senator Musto to Gamblers”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 Nov 2016

Forms of have one's hand out

third-person singular presenthas one's hand out
present participlehaving one's hand out
past participlehad one's hand out
pasthad one's hand out

Origin of have one's hand out

An allusion to the beseeching manner and typical gesture of a beggar.

Questions about have one's hand out

What does have one's hand out mean?
Have one's hand out means to request benefits, especially monetary ones and especially if not entitled to them.
What part of speech is have one's hand out?
Have one's hand out is a verb.
What is the past tense of have one's hand out?
The past tense of have one's hand out is had one's hand out.

Words near have one's hand out in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: have one's hand out (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 out.ogg.

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