Word.ws English Dictionary

sits on one's hands

sits on one's hands is the third-person singular simple present indicative of sit on one's hands.

Meaning of sit on one's hands

Verb

sit on one's hands (third-person singular simple present sits on one's hands, present participle sitting on one's hands, simple past and past participle sat on one's hands)

  1. (idiomatic) To remain idle when action is needed, perhaps because of fear, ignorance, complacency, indecisiveness, or dislike of the person(s) or situation.
    • "Ministers cannot continue to sit on their hands, hoping this dispute will go away. Our members are fully prepared to fight tooth-and-nail for a negotiated settlement," RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch has warned.2023 March 8, Mel Holley, “TSSA accepts offer, but RMT sets new strike dates”, in RAIL, number 978, page 10
  2. (informal) To fail to applaud when expected to.
    • While Boston is a "musical town," audiences here sat on their hands a good part of the time.1946, Billboard, volume 58, number 40

Questions about sits on one's hands

What is sits on one's hands the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Sits on one's hands is the third-person singular simple present indicative of sit on one's hands.

Words near sits on one's hands in the dictionary

  1. sits on
  2. sits on death's doorstep
  3. sits on it
  4. sits on one's arse
  5. sits on one's ass
  6. sits on one's hands
  7. sits on one's laurels
  8. sits on someone's wheel
  9. sits on the fence
  10. sits one's ass down
  11. sits one's butt down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sits on one's hands (page history and authors); sit on one's 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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Cite this entry: “sits on one's hands.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sits_on_one%27s_hands. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.