Word.ws English Dictionary

steady hands on the tillers

steady hands on the tillers is the plural of steady hand on the tiller.

Meaning of steady hand on the tiller

Noun

steady hand on the tiller (usually uncountable, plural steady hands on the tiller or steady hands on the tillers)

  1. (idiomatic, usually) Reliable, composed control (of an organization or situation).
    • The new president of the Varityper division of the financially troubled AM International, Joseph A. Verderber, knows that he has his work cut out for him. . . . "My challenge in a ship that big is to make certain that it has a good steady hand on the tiller."1982 January 25, Leonard Sloane, “Business People: Challenge at Varityper”, in New York Times, retrieved 06 Feb 2018
  2. (broadly, idiomatic, usually) A person exhibiting such control.
    • [T]heir expressions of confidence in the new Bush administration were likely heartfelt — officials around the world reminisced enthusiastically about the scion of a president best remembered as a sober and steady hand on the tiller of foreign policy.2000 December 14, Tony Karon, “How the World Sees President Bush”, in Time, retrieved 06 Feb 2018

Questions about steady hands on the tillers

What is steady hands on the tillers the plural of?
Steady hands on the tillers is the plural of steady hand on the tiller.

Words near steady hands on the tillers in the dictionary

  1. steady hand at the tiller
  2. steady hand on the tiller
  3. steady hands at the tiller
  4. steady hands at the tillers
  5. steady hands on the tiller
  6. steady hands on the tillers
  7. steady on
  8. steady pom pi pi
  9. steady state
  10. steady state theory
  11. steady stater

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: steady hands on the tillers (page history and authors); steady hand on the tiller (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:

Cite this entry: “steady hands on the tillers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/steady_hands_on_the_tillers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.