Meaning
Two senses. To help someone with a task, as in asking for assistance with something heavy or complicated. Also, to applaud someone, that is, to clap for them; this sense is often strengthened to give someone a big hand. Context, or the words 'with' versus 'for', normally shows which is meant. Informal to neutral; the applause sense lives mostly in announcements and stagecraft, the helping sense in everyday requests. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Both senses rest on the hand as the instrument of effort and of applause. The helping sense has no reliable first date in publicly available reference works; it grew naturally out of older helping expressions such as 'lend a hand', in which a 'hand' means a share of physical work, and modern dictionaries treat it as standard. The applause sense is documented more firmly: Etymonline dates the noun 'hand' meaning a round of applause to 1838, and Word Histories, surveying the related show-business formula in American trade papers, finds 'give a (great) big hand' in print by March 1928. The applause formula was popularised by American theatre and vaudeville announcing style and then spread to general use. So the sequence is: applause noun in the 19th century, the fixed 'give ... a hand' formula in the early 20th, and an older but publicly undated helping sense alongside them.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a big hand for someone
- give me a hand
- give someone a big hand
- lend someone a hand
Usage Examples
- Could you give me a hand carrying these boxes down to the car?
- Let's give a big hand to tonight's performers - they were sensational.
- The neighbours gave the young couple a hand rebuilding the fence after the storm.