Meaning
Rapidly and in large amounts, almost always describing money being made, gained, or lost. It works as an adverbial phrase, most often in the pattern 'making money hand over fist'. Informal and colloquial; it suggests effortless, continuous accumulation rather than a single windfall. Informal; almost always tied to money being gained or lost. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The older form is 'hand over hand', describing the alternating grip used to climb or haul a rope: it is recorded in 1736 (Philosophical Transactions, of workmen descending by a rope) and in 1769 as a hauling command in Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine. 'Hand over fist' appears by 1825 in a naval novel (Glascock's The Naval Sketchbook) and in the money sense by 1833 in Seba Smith's Major Jack Downing letters. The naval pedigree is probable rather than proven: as The Phrase Finder cautions, the earliest citations describe rope work without mentioning ships. The shift from 'hand over hand' (steady progress) to 'hand over fist' (fast and plentiful) suits a fist clenched around a rope or around banknotes.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- hand over hand
- hand-over-fist (attributive)
- making money hand over fist
Usage Examples
- The food trucks outside the stadium were making money hand over fist before the concert.
- Investors who backed the tiny software firm in 2010 earned hand over fist when it went public.
- He lost money hand over fist renovating that house, buying materials he never used.