red-handed
red-handed adjective: showing clear evidence of guilt; in the act of wrongdoing.
Adjective
red-handed (comparative more red-handed, superlative most red-handed)
- Showing clear evidence of guilt; in the act of wrongdoing.
- to catch red-handed
- Caught, red-handed, on the spot, in the very act of aiding and abetting the traitors against the Republic of France, the Englishman could claim no protection from his own country.1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- in flagrante delicto
- Deadly, bloody.
- The demon of fire followed close upon the heels of the unseen fiend of the earth's hidden caverns, and ran red-handed through the metropolis of the West, kindling a thousand unhurt buildings, while the horror-stricken people stood aghast in terror, as helpless to combat this new enemy as they were...2013, The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire, →ISBN
- I grew to manhood listening to Greeks and Persians plotting various plots in my master's house, and one night all the plots burst forth into ugly blossoms and bore the fruit of red-handed war, and the Greek cities of Ionia revolted against the Persian overlords.2014, Christian Cameron, The Great King, →ISBN
- With hands that are red from blood.
- The blisters had wept blood for a while, leaving him literally red-handed for the rest of the night.2008, Trevor Baxendale, Doctor Who: Wishing Well, →ISBN, page 67
- A red-handed cleaning lady slopped a wet, ragged mop.2014, Rosa Liksom, Compartment - Issue 6, →ISBN
red-handed meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Arabic and Thai
red-handed in Tamil
- கையுங்களவுமாக
red-handed in Malayalam
- കുറ്റം ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കവേ
red-handed in Arabic
- in the act of wrongdoing
- مُتَلَبَّس mutalabbas, جُرْم مَشْهُود jurm mašhūd
red-handed in Thai
- in the act of wrongdoing
- คาหนังคาเขา kaa-nǎng-kaa-kǎo, จะจะ jà-jà
Examples of red-handed in a sentence
- Another Southerner argued that "commerce has no social illusions" and that it would be commerce that would rid the region of "this historic, red-handed, deformed, and swaggering villain."1991 October, Edward L. Ayers, “Legacy of violence”, in American Heritage, volume 42, number 6, page 102:
- Sometimes when cheaters are nabbed red-handed they react with anger, they "rage" in an attempt to make the person who caught 'em feel like they did something wrong.2003 August, Pamela Paul, “Dear Reader, Get a Life.”, in Psychology Today, volume 36, number 4, page 56:
- He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land.2014, Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword, →ISBN:
Synonyms of red-handed
Forms of red-handed
| comparative | more red-handed |
|---|---|
| superlative | most red-handed |
Origin of red-handed
From red + handed, likening to a murderer with their hands red with the victim's blood. The phrase to be taken with red hand originally meant "to be caught in the act". The use of red hand in this sense dates back to at least the 15th century in medieval Scotland and Scots law. Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819) contains the first recorded use of taken red-handed for someone apprehended in the act of committing a crime. The expression subsequently became more common as caught red-handed.
Words formed from red-handed
Phrases with red-handed
Questions about red-handed
- What does red-handed mean?
- Red-handed means showing clear evidence of guilt; in the act of wrongdoing.
- What is red-handed in Tamil?
- Red-handed in Tamil is கையுங்களவுமாக. See Red-handed meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use red-handed in a sentence?
- Another Southerner argued that "commerce has no social illusions" and that it would be commerce that would rid the region of "this historic, red-handed, deformed, and swaggering villain."
- What part of speech is red-handed?
- Red-handed is an adjective.
Words near red-handed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: red-handed (page history and authors); red-handed (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); red-handed (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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-red-handed.ogg.
Cite this entry: “red-handed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/red-handed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.