Word.ws English Dictionary

throwing up one's hands

throwing up one's hands is the present participle and gerund of throw up one's hands.

Meaning of throw up one's hands

Verb

throw up one's hands (third-person singular simple present throws up one's hands, present participle throwing up one's hands, simple past threw up one's hands, past participle thrown up one's hands)

  1. (intransitive) To raise both hands in the air in an exasperated manner.
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To cease an attempt because it is perceived as doomed.
    • I see it warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead—I'd got to throw up my hands.1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC

Questions about throwing up one's hands

What is throwing up one's hands the present participle and gerund of?
Throwing up one's hands is the present participle and gerund of throw up one's hands.

Words near throwing up one's hands in the dictionary

  1. throwing to the wolves
  2. throwing together
  3. throwing under a bus
  4. throwing under the bus
  5. throwing up
  6. throwing up one's hands
  7. throwing up the sponge
  8. throwing wheel
  9. throwing wheels
  10. throwing wobblies
  11. throwing-ax

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throwing up one's hands (page history and authors); throw up 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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