Word.ws English Dictionary

velvet handcuffs

velvet handcuffs noun: golden handcuffs: any arrangement designed to provide favorable benefits or pay so as to discourage a participant from choosing to leave it.

Noun

velvet handcuffs pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) Golden handcuffs: any arrangement designed to provide favorable benefits or pay so as to discourage a participant from choosing to leave it.
    • If turnover is low, is this for good reasons or because staff have no other opportunities or are trapped by "velvet handcuffs" — are dissatisfied and would like to leave, but the money is too good.2000, Jack A. Green, Contact: a Guide to Developing Effective Call Centre Skills
    • Inevitably, it turns out, singing other people's songs or having to collaborate with one's bandmates can sometimes feel like a prison sentence, albeit one with velvet handcuffs and minimum security.2004 March 13, Billboard, volume 116, number 11, page 11
  2. (plural, plural-only) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see velvet, handcuffs.

Synonyms of velvet handcuffs

Questions about velvet handcuffs

What does velvet handcuffs mean?
Velvet handcuffs means golden handcuffs: any arrangement designed to provide favorable benefits or pay so as to discourage a participant from choosing to leave it.
What part of speech is velvet handcuffs?
Velvet handcuffs is a noun.

Words near velvet handcuffs in the dictionary

  1. velvet duck
  2. velvet ducks
  3. velvet flower
  4. velvet flowers
  5. velvet glove
  6. velvet handcuffs
  7. velvet hippo
  8. velvet hippos
  9. velvet leatherjacket
  10. velvet leatherjackets
  11. velvet noise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: velvet handcuffs (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-velvet handcuffs.ogg.

Cite this entry: “velvet handcuffs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/velvet_handcuffs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.