Word.ws English Dictionary

on all hands

on all hands prepositional phrase: by more or less everybody; generally.

Prepositional phrase

  1. By more or less everybody; generally.
    • It was believed on all hands that the two of them were having an illicit affair.
    • And it is on all Hands agreed that there is need of great Toil and Labour of the Mind, to Emancipate our Thoughts from particular Objects, and raiſe them to thoſe Sublime Speculations that are converſant about abſtract Ideas.1710, George Berkeley, “Introduction”, in A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. […], Dublin: […] Aaron Rhames, for Jeremy [i.e., Jeremiah] Pepyat, […], →OCLC, § 14, page 20
  2. From all sides; from every direction.

Questions about on all hands

What does on all hands mean?
On all hands means by more or less everybody; generally.
What part of speech is on all hands?
On all hands is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on all hands in the dictionary

  1. on again, off again
  2. on air
  3. on alert
  4. on all counts
  5. on all fours
  6. on all hands
  7. on all-fours
  8. on an empty stomach
  9. on an equal footing
  10. on an impulse
  11. on an irregular basis

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on all hands (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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