to high five
12
2.7
- phrasal verb
- /haɪ faɪv/
- Informal
:
chocar los cinco
- The cable guy puts his hand up for Steven to high-five.
- high-five each other
- high-fived a guy
- high-fived fans
When somebody high fives you, you feel seen.
- When somebody high fives you, you feel seen.
- And I later found out that when I left, they high fived each other.
- They were like you're bad ass man and high fiving me.
- By the way, this is exactly how I'm like in hospital, you know, strutting my stuff, high fiving people, people giving me sandwiches.
- But I suddenly found myself raising my hand and high fiving that woman I saw in the mirror because she needed it.
- Most people when you have an aha moment and the door to your new life opens up, instead of going, I got this, let's go and high fiving yourself to step forward.
- This is another form of high fiving your mindset and that is saying yourself, there's something amazing that's coming.
Examples
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You're high fiving your kid and that's great.
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They were just encouraging me... and they were high-fiving me.
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When somebody high fives you, you feel seen.
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Or, the way we do things here, teams high-five each other after games.
Blog text (28) -
Everyone starts high-fiving each other.
Fiction book (2000) -
Let's not all high-five at once.
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I'm just gonna high-five the guy.
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You come in seventh, and the boys who are already finished stick up their hands, and you high-five them.
Fiction book (1993) -
Let's high-five.
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After scoring the winning goal, the player turned to his teammates and shouted, "Let's high five!"
How Celebratory
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'high' (raised) and 'five' (the five-fingered hand) give a partial clue that the expression involves raised open hands, so a learner who knows both words can infer something about raised hands. However, the conventionalized gesture—slapping palms as a celebratory greeting—is a cultural/pragmatic detail not fully predictable from the words alone, so the relation is only partially transparent.
Etymology
High five as a verb comes from the same action: you raise your hand high and show your open hand with five fingers, then slap another person's hand. That's why to high five means 'to touch another person's raised hand to celebrate'.