HAND TO HAND

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does hand to hand mean? 

• HAND TO HAND (adverb)
  The adverb HAND TO HAND has 1 sense:

1. at close quarters

  Familiarity information: HAND TO HAND used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HAND TO HAND (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

At close quarters

Context example:

fought hand to hand

 Context examples 

It was a two-guinea piece, and it went from hand to hand among them for a quarter of a minute.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

His chaise was driven nineteen miles in an hour in a match against the Count Taafe, and he sent a message fifty miles in thirty minutes by throwing it from hand to hand in a cricket-ball.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

How Jo laughed, with tears in her eyes, as she declared she might as well be a peacock and done with it, and how the 'Spread Eagle' might be said to flap his wings triumphantly over the House of March, as the paper passed from hand to hand.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Thus encouraged, the buccaneer stepped forth more briskly, and having passed something to Silver, from hand to hand, slipped yet more smartly back again to his companions.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It went from hand to hand, one tearing it from another; and by the oaths and the cries and the childish laughter with which they accompanied their examination, you would have thought, not only they were fingering the very gold, but were at sea with it, besides, in safety.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)