Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
to fill one's hand

to fill one's hand

8.6
Put as much as your hand can hold
  • idiom
translation icon : llenar la mano
  • She managed to fill her hand with wildflowers during her morning walk.

Examples

  • The child tried to fill his hand with candy from the jar.

  • He can fill his hand with fresh strawberries.

  • He bent down to fill his hand with small pebbles from the shore.

  • Can you fill your hand with sand?

  • She filled her hand with colorful marbles from the table.

  • He filled his hand with snow to make a snowball.

  • The child filled his hand with ripe berries from the bush.

Antonyms

to release
∞ 1.8

To let someone or something go free from being held

to drop
∞ 1.0

To let something fall suddenly or by accident

How Full

to fill one's hand
8.6
to scoop
127 1.9
to hold
∞ 1.0
to cup
15 3.7

Surface Forms

fill one's hand infinitive
filled one's hand past
filled one's hand past participle
filling one's hand present participle
fills one's hand third person singular

Morphology

fill + one's + hand

The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'fill' (to make full) combined with 'one's hand' (the person's hand), so it literally means to gather or hold as much as fits in the hand. This is a common, concrete physical construction found across languages and follows regular English possession + verb patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the words would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Fill one's hand comes from the simple image of putting as much as you can into your hand, like scooping pebbles or flowers until your hand is full. So, it means 'to gather or hold as much as you can in your hand'.