put her there

1 9.8

Hold out your hand to ask for a friendly handshake

idiom

Archaic

: dame la mano

He grinned and said, "Put her there!" as he extended his hand for a handshake.

Examples

She approached with a big smile and offered, "Put her there, partner!"
It's great to see you! Put her there!
After the deal was made, they smiled and one said, "Put her there!"
After the meeting, I said, put her there to my colleague.
When we met at the conference, he smiled and said, 'Put her there,' extending his hand for a handshake.
After agreeing on the deal, my boss said, 'Put her there,' as we shook hands to seal the agreement.
As soon as I saw my old friend, he laughed and said, 'Put her there,' offering his hand for a friendly greeting.

Synonyms

to shake hands

vsput her there

138 1.0

To take someone's hand and move it up and down as a greeting or to show agreement

is a spoken invitation to perform that physical greeting or to show agreement

Antonyms

to turn away

94 2.3

Move your body so you do not face someone or something

to wave one's hand dismissively

6.7

To move your hand to show you do not care

Surface Forms

put her there main

Morphology

put + her + there

The imperative phrase 'put her there' (often heard as the colloquial contraction 'put ’er there') is a conventionalized invitation to shake hands whose meaning cannot be predicted from the literal senses of 'put' (place), 'her' (female person), and 'there' (in that place). A B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely interpret a physical placement of a person rather than a handshake offer, so this is an idiomatic, language-specific usage rather than compositional.

Etymology

Put her there may come from a simple greeting: when someone offered a handshake they held out their hand and said 'put her there', a quick way to say 'put your hand there'. So, the phrase came to mean 'shake hands' or show friendly agreement.