"hand in the cookie jar" meaning in English

See hand in the cookie jar in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: hands in the cookie jar [plural], hands in cookie jars [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun|hands in the cookie jar|hands in cookie jars}} hand in the cookie jar (plural hands in the cookie jar or hands in cookie jars)

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for hand in the cookie jar meaning in English (2.2kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hands in the cookie jar",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hands in cookie jars",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "hands in the cookie jar",
        "2": "hands in cookie jars"
      },
      "expansion": "hand in the cookie jar (plural hands in the cookie jar or hands in cookie jars)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She had her hand in the cookie jar throughout her term of office."
        },
        {
          "text": "He was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and eventually found guilty of embezzlement."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1969 December 13, “Insurance Man Accused in Theft of $400,000”, in Los Angeles Times, page A10",
          "text": "A Long Beach insurance broker, who admittedly got caught with his \"hand in the cookie jar\", has been accused of the theft of $400,000 from the Bank of America.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989 February 19, Claudia Deutsch, “Passing Sentence Before A Trial”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-05-24",
          "text": "Any crisis, whether it is a plant explosion or an executive caught with his hand in the cookie jar, takes on a life of its own.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, James W. McElhaney, McElhaney's Litigation, volume 1, page 49",
          "text": "There are chief executives of some companies who know their hands were in the cookie jar, but who are convinced that no mere lawyer could ever pin it on them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 December 31, “The competition was fierce, and the judging a fraught affair”, in The Times, South Africa, retrieved 2009-05-24",
          "text": "Frankenmanto was, in fact, a certified kleptomaniac who had to carry a doctor’s letter on her to explain the embarrassing little moments when she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used metaphorically to indicate some act of stealing"
      ],
      "id": "en-hand_in_the_cookie_jar-en-noun-D6pUJk10",
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fingers in the cookie jar"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "hand in the cookie jar"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "hands in the cookie jar",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "hands in cookie jars",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "hands in the cookie jar",
        "2": "hands in cookie jars"
      },
      "expansion": "hand in the cookie jar (plural hands in the cookie jar or hands in cookie jars)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "She had her hand in the cookie jar throughout her term of office."
        },
        {
          "text": "He was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and eventually found guilty of embezzlement."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1969 December 13, “Insurance Man Accused in Theft of $400,000”, in Los Angeles Times, page A10",
          "text": "A Long Beach insurance broker, who admittedly got caught with his \"hand in the cookie jar\", has been accused of the theft of $400,000 from the Bank of America.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989 February 19, Claudia Deutsch, “Passing Sentence Before A Trial”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-05-24",
          "text": "Any crisis, whether it is a plant explosion or an executive caught with his hand in the cookie jar, takes on a life of its own.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, James W. McElhaney, McElhaney's Litigation, volume 1, page 49",
          "text": "There are chief executives of some companies who know their hands were in the cookie jar, but who are convinced that no mere lawyer could ever pin it on them.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 December 31, “The competition was fierce, and the judging a fraught affair”, in The Times, South Africa, retrieved 2009-05-24",
          "text": "Frankenmanto was, in fact, a certified kleptomaniac who had to carry a doctor’s letter on her to explain the embarrassing little moments when she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used metaphorically to indicate some act of stealing"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "fingers in the cookie jar"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "hand in the cookie jar"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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