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Glite Dictionary
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Close guidance 🤝 Holding hands 🧑‍🏫 Over-helpful
hand-holding

hand-holding

1 1.9
Holding another person's hand to show love or give comfort
  • noun
  • /hænd ˈhoʊldɪŋ/
translation icon : tomarse de la mano
  • A certain degree of physical affection was lovely: kissing, hugging, and hand-holding were great.

I've got Lynn's hand holding her hand leaving the classroom.

Examples

  • The couple was very affectionate, often seen with hand-holding during their strolls.

  • They walked down the street together, hand-holding while enjoying the sunset.

  • My girlfriend and I had and we were holding hands like cross hatch hand holding and like this.

  • This would have been a cute hand-holding moment.

    Blog text (18)

  • I've got Lynn's hand holding her hand leaving the classroom.

    StarTalk

  • After the scary movie, they shared a moment of comfort with hand-holding in the dark.

How Affectionate

to embrace
142 2.8
to kiss
∞ 1.0
hand-holding
1 1.9
to touch
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

hand-holding singular
hand-holdings plural

Morphology

hand-holding = hand + holding (transparent) = hand + hold + ing

This sense is the literal action of holding hands, so the compound 'hand' + 'holding' is directly and transparently meaningful to learners.

Etymology

Hand-holding is simply hand + hold, literally 'holding a hand' to show care or keep someone safe, which is why the noun means the act of holding another person's hand.