LAY HANDS ON

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does lay hands on mean? 

• LAY HANDS ON (verb)
  The verb LAY HANDS ON has 1 sense:

1. manage with the hands

  Familiarity information: LAY HANDS ON used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LAY HANDS ON (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Manage with the hands

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "lay hands on" is one way to...):

manipulate (hold something in one's hands and move it)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

A most unsociable dog he proved to be, resenting all their advances, refusing to let them lay hands on him, menacing them with bared fangs and bristling hair.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

For days his manifestations of desire to lay hands on him had been growing more insistent, and during that time White Fang had been compelled to avoid the camp.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

The exhibition they make of their feelings is not a touching sight, yet it shows how deeply they have been touched, how deeply their purses have been touched, for to lay hands on their purses is to lay hands on their souls.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke,—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

"You remember the other time I was here I said I couldn't talk about books an' things because I didn't know how? Well, I've ben doin' a lot of thinkin' ever since. I've ben to the library a whole lot, but most of the books I've tackled have ben over my head. Mebbe I'd better begin at the beginnin'. I ain't never had no advantages. I've worked pretty hard ever since I was a kid, an' since I've ben to the library, lookin' with new eyes at books—an' lookin' at new books, too—I've just about concluded that I ain't ben reading the right kind. You know the books you find in cattle- camps an' fo'c's'ls ain't the same you've got in this house, for instance. Well, that's the sort of readin' matter I've ben accustomed to. And yet—an' I ain't just makin' a brag of it—I've ben different from the people I've herded with. Not that I'm any better than the sailors an' cow-punchers I travelled with,—I was cow-punchin' for a short time, you know,—but I always liked books, read everything I could lay hands on, an'—well, I guess I think differently from most of 'em.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)