hand to hand
5
3.8
- idiom
:
cuerpo a cuerpo
- Three rounds, hand to hand.
- passed from hand to hand
Examples
-
A master in small arms and hand-to-hand combat, able to disarm or kill in a heartbeat.
Blog text (11) -
Aragorn and a group of warriors are fighting hand-to-hand, being forced back by scores of ape infantry.
Fiction book (1996) -
Did you fight them hand to hand?
Fiction book (1995) -
And it is like hand to hand combat with myself.
-
I'll take him myself, hand to hand.
-
But we got through it all, had a little bit of hand to hand and force marches, things like that.
-
So warfare is no longer, you know, hand to hand combat in the trench like World War One.
-
Well, warfare today isn't really so much about hand to hand combat.
-
If we get into hand-to-hand combat, we don't stand a chance.
-
In the final round of the tournament, the fighters engaged in hand to hand combat, showcasing their skills up close.
Synonyms
18
5.4
Physical fighting that happens very close to someone
10
7.0
To stand very close and fight or argue strongly
How Close
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'involving close physical contact or combat' is directly and compositionally derived from 'hand' + 'to' + 'hand', which literally signals contact between hands (i.e. close proximity). This is a transparent, literal compound pattern with clear cross-linguistic parallels, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
The adverb hand to hand comes from the image of fighters so close they use their hands to grab, punch, or hold each other because there are no long weapons between them. So it now means 'in very close physical contact' or 'in close combat'.