Word.ws English Dictionary

hold onto your hat

hold onto your hat phrase: one should prepare for a surprise or shock.

Phrase

hold onto your hat

  1. (humorous, idiomatic, usually) One should prepare for a surprise or shock.
    • Hold onto your hat—intersecting planes are planes that cross, or intersect.2011, Mark Ryan, Geometry Essentials For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 14
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see hold, onto, hat.

Synonyms of hold onto your hat

Forms of hold onto your hat

alternative formhold on to your hat

Questions about hold onto your hat

What does hold onto your hat mean?
Hold onto your hat means one should prepare for a surprise or shock.
What part of speech is hold onto your hat?
Hold onto your hat is a phrase.

Words near hold onto your hat in the dictionary

  1. hold one's piss
  2. hold one's tongue
  3. hold one's water
  4. hold oneself together
  5. hold onto
  6. hold onto your hat
  7. hold out
  8. hold outs
  9. hold over
  10. hold over someone's head
  11. hold ransom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold onto your hat (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-hold onto your hat.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hold onto your hat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hold_onto_your_hat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.