Word.ws English Dictionary

having one's hand in the till

having one's hand in the till is the present participle and gerund of have one's hand in the till.

Meaning of have one's hand in the till

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

Questions about having one's hand in the till

What is having one's hand in the till the present participle and gerund of?
Having one's hand in the till is the present participle and gerund of have one's hand in the till.

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

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: having one's hand in the till (page history and authors); 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “having one's hand in the till.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/having_one%27s_hand_in_the_till. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.