Word.ws English Dictionary

talk to the hand

talk to the hand phrase: used to dismiss another person's argument by indicating that one is not prepared to hear or read anything further from that person. It is often used while simultaneously holding up the hand with the palm facing the speaker.

Phrase

talk to the hand

  1. (US, colloquial, dated, sarcastic, African-American Vernacular) Used to dismiss another person's argument by indicating that one is not prepared to hear or read anything further from that person. It is often used while simultaneously holding up the hand with the palm facing the speaker.
    • Oh honey, talk to the hand, the ears ain't listening!1997, Todd Graff, The Beautician and the Beast, spoken by Joy Miller
    • Tommy showed Tony the palm of his hand. ‘Tell it to the ’and ’cos the face ain't listening.’2002, Ben Elton, High Society, Random House, published 2012, →ISBN, page 172

Verb

talk to the hand (third-person singular simple present talks to the hand, present participle talking to the hand, simple past and past participle talked to the hand)

  1. (US, colloquial, dated, sarcastic, African-American Vernacular) Used to dismiss another person's argument by indicating that one is not prepared to hear or read anything further from that person. It is often used while simultaneously holding up the hand with the palm facing the speaker.
    • Girl, you can talk to the hand 'cause I ain't listenin' no more.
    • Of all the hand gestures used by Men and women, "talking to the hand” is a gesture that should be exclusively used by women. There isn't anything Manly by making somebody "talk to the hand."2012, Joseph Greene, The ComMANdments; The Official Guide Book to Man Rules, page 161

Synonyms of talk to the hand

Forms of talk to the hand

third-person singular presenttalks to the hand
present participletalking to the hand
past participletalked to the hand
pasttalked to the hand

Questions about talk to the hand

What does talk to the hand mean?
Talk to the hand means used to dismiss another person's argument by indicating that one is not prepared to hear or read anything further from that person. It is often used while simultaneously holding up the hand with the palm facing the speaker.
What part of speech is talk to the hand?
Talk to the hand can be a phrase or a verb.

Words near talk to the hand in the dictionary

  1. talk to God
  2. talk to God on the big white telephone
  3. talk to oneself
  4. talk to Ralph on the big white telephone
  5. talk to the fist
  6. talk to the hand
  7. talk to the hand 'cause the face ain't listening
  8. talk trash
  9. talk truth to power
  10. talk turkey
  11. talk up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: talk to the hand (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-talk to the hand.wav.

Cite this entry: “talk to the hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/talk_to_the_hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.