hand-to-hand

[ hand-tuh-hand ]

adjective

1. close to one's adversary; at close quarters:

   hand-to-hand combat.

hand-to-hand

adjective

1. at close quarters

   they fought hand-to-hand

Word History and Origins

Origin of hand-to-hand¹

late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50

Example Sentences

Fighting from hand to hand: from position to position; not knowing where the next attack would come; but the steady moving forward until we cleared the entire woods.”

From Literature

In the classroom-turned-cafeteria, survivors passed one of the volunteer’s cellphones from hand to hand across three long dining tables.

From Seattle Times

Then, packages pass carefully from hand to hand, delivered by taxi or via “drops” with a detailed time, place and description of the contact.

From Seattle Times

Children passing pictures from hand to hand, looking at them, getting ideas about art.

From Washington Post

"We have the most lethal weapon there is, that nobody talks about, which is the telephone, so on social media networks very easily things pass from hand to hand over TikTok, etc," he said.

From Reuters