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View synonyms for upper hand

upper hand

noun

  1. the dominating or controlling position; advantage:

    to have the upper hand in the fight.



upper hand

noun

  1. the upper hand
    the position of control; advantage (esp in the phrases have or get the upper hand )
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of upper hand1

First recorded in 1475–85
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Idioms and Phrases

Also, whip hand . A dominating or controlling position, as in Once you let Jeff get the upper hand there'll be no stopping him , or When it comes to checkers, my son-in-law generally has the whip hand . The first term alludes to an ancient game in which each player in turn grasps a stick with one hand, beginning from the bottom, and the last who can put his hand at the top wins. Its figurative use dates from the late 1400s. The variant alludes to the driver who holds the whip in a horse-drawn vehicle; it was being used figuratively by the late 1600s.
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Example Sentences

And as of early Tuesday, firefighters still had the upper hand against the fire.

Wales missed 32 tackles, conceded 12 turnovers and 12 penalties and, though they managed 18 successful line-outs, they could not quite gain the upper hand on the scoreboard.

From BBC

Friday, however, at least gives the world's number-one side the chance to regain the upper hand in a rivalry that has transfixed the rugby world in recent years.

From BBC

The cat-and-mouse game between Bruno and George provides the fun as each man always thinks they have the upper hand.

From Salon

Now there’s a war raging inside her feeds between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris - and who appears to have the upper hand is different depending on which social media site she looks at.

From BBC

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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