hand over fist
to make or lose money quickly
TRANSLATION
hand over fist = rasant, im Handumdrehen --- GOOGLE INDEX hand over fist: approximately 700,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Despite the recession, this is a company that continues to make money HAND OVER FIST.
(Retail Week)
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Chinese solar companies are losing money HAND OVER FIST because the Chinese market is now saturated by panels that can't be exported.
(Wall Street Journal)
(Retail Week)
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Chinese solar companies are losing money HAND OVER FIST because the Chinese market is now saturated by panels that can't be exported.
(Wall Street Journal)
Did you
know?
hand over fist
idiom
- at a tremendous rate (usually money)
(The American Heritage Dictionary)
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Hand over fist is believed to be nautical in origin and probably derives from another expression "hand over hand," which alludes to pulling on a rope. There are many instances of hand over hand being used in various texts in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The following entry is in William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769):
"Main avant - the order to pull on a rope hand-over-hand."
Hand over hand - and later hand over fist - were originally used in the sense of "making steady progress," which aligns with the idea of pulling on a rope. One can also imagine opening the fist of one hand to grab the rope, which could also explain the origin.
Hand over fist meanwhile primarily refers to making (or even losing) money very fast and in large quantities. One theory here is that the expression stems from grabbing money with the fist and quickly pocketing it. This certainly sounds plausible, but like with so many expressions this is only conjecture or an educated guess at best.
Etymology: Hand is from the Old English hond, meaning power, control possession, which evolved to hand. The Old English plural was handen and then later hands. Fist is from the Old English fyst, which derived further from the Proto-Germanic "fukhstiz" and likely the Proto-Indo-European "penkwe," meaning five.
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Some App designers are making money hand over fist."
idiom
- at a tremendous rate (usually money)
(The American Heritage Dictionary)
---
Hand over fist is believed to be nautical in origin and probably derives from another expression "hand over hand," which alludes to pulling on a rope. There are many instances of hand over hand being used in various texts in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The following entry is in William Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769):
"Main avant - the order to pull on a rope hand-over-hand."
Hand over hand - and later hand over fist - were originally used in the sense of "making steady progress," which aligns with the idea of pulling on a rope. One can also imagine opening the fist of one hand to grab the rope, which could also explain the origin.
Hand over fist meanwhile primarily refers to making (or even losing) money very fast and in large quantities. One theory here is that the expression stems from grabbing money with the fist and quickly pocketing it. This certainly sounds plausible, but like with so many expressions this is only conjecture or an educated guess at best.
Etymology: Hand is from the Old English hond, meaning power, control possession, which evolved to hand. The Old English plural was handen and then later hands. Fist is from the Old English fyst, which derived further from the Proto-Germanic "fukhstiz" and likely the Proto-Indo-European "penkwe," meaning five.
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"Some App designers are making money hand over fist."
