Word.ws English Dictionary

try one's hand

try one's hand verb: to attempt a skill, craft, trade, or action, possibly for the first time.

Verb

try one's hand (third-person singular simple present tries one's hand, present participle trying one's hand, simple past and past participle tried one's hand)

  1. (idiomatic) To attempt a skill, craft, trade, or action, possibly for the first time.
    • I thought I'd try my hand at woodworking, until I saw how much the tools cost.

Forms of try one's hand

third-person singular presenttries one's hand
present participletrying one's hand
past participletried one's hand
pasttried one's hand

Questions about try one's hand

What does try one's hand mean?
Try one's hand means to attempt a skill, craft, trade, or action, possibly for the first time.
What part of speech is try one's hand?
Try one's hand is a verb.
What is the past tense of try one's hand?
The past tense of try one's hand is tried one's hand.

Words near try one's hand in the dictionary

  1. try line
  2. try lines
  3. try me
  4. try on
  5. try on for size
  6. try one's hand
  7. try one's luck
  8. try one's wings
  9. try out
  10. try over
  11. try pot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: try one's 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: En-au-try one's hand.ogg.

Cite this entry: “try one's hand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/try_one%27s_hand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.