Meaning
In extremely close association or cooperation with someone, working together as snugly as a hand fits its glove. Frequently, though not always, it implies collusion in something underhand, so context matters; it also serves as a hyphenated adjective, as in a hand-in-glove relationship. Often darkly suggestive of collusion; a neutral sense of tight cooperation exists but readers may hear an accusation. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The imagery is the close, natural fit of a hand inside a glove. The older form of the expression is 'hand and glove': the OED's earliest evidence for it is 1654, in the writing of Edmund Gayton, and the modern 'hand in glove' began as part of that same entry, with its own earliest evidence from 1737 in the writing of E. Smith. So 'hand and glove' came first, by roughly eighty years, and the two forms coexisted before the 'in' version became standard. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the phrase drifted towards the conspiratorial end of its range, and today journalism uses it heavily for improper partnerships between, say, regulators and the industries they oversee - even though a neutral sense of simple closeness remains available.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- hand and glove
- hand and glove with
- work hand in glove with
Usage Examples
- Prosecutors claim the regulator worked hand in glove with the firms it was supposed to police.
- The design and marketing teams operate hand in glove, so campaigns rarely slip through.
- Local reporters discovered the charity and the developer had been hand in glove on the land deal.