Word.ws English Dictionary

secret handshakes

secret handshakes is the plural of secret handshake.

Meaning of secret handshake

Noun

secret handshake (plural secret handshakes)

  1. A distinct form of handshake, often with the fingers or thumbs specially positioned, that covertly indicates a person's membership of a club or clique.
  2. (broadly, figuratively) Any shibboleth or distinguishing sign.
    • Stuart Auerbach, who covered legal affairs at the Washington Post, has speculated that lawyers' language serves “as a secret handshake in a fraternity, letting others know you are one of the tribe.”2003, Tom Goldstein, Jethro K. Lieberman, The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well, page 19

Questions about secret handshakes

What is secret handshakes the plural of?
Secret handshakes is the plural of secret handshake.

Words near secret handshakes in the dictionary

  1. secret chancellor
  2. secret chancellors
  3. secret government
  4. secret governments
  5. secret handshake
  6. secret handshakes
  7. secret histories
  8. secret history
  9. secret ink
  10. secret inks
  11. Secret Intelligence Service

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: secret handshakes (page history and authors); secret handshake (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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