"have one's hands full" meaning in English

See have one's hands full in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-have one's hands full.ogg Forms: has one's hands full [present, singular, third-person], having one's hands full [participle, present], had one's hands full [participle, past], had one's hands full [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> one's hands full}} have one's hands full (third-person singular simple present has one's hands full, present participle having one's hands full, simple past and past participle had one's hands full)
  1. (idiomatic) To be busy or thoroughly preoccupied. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: have one's handful [obsolete] Related terms: handful, have one's hands tied, tie one's hands Translations (be busy or thoroughly preoccupied): alle Hände voll zu tun haben (German), hafa nóg á sinni könnu (Icelandic), mieć pełne ręce roboty [imperfective] (Polish), estar de mãos cheias (Portuguese), but see foarte ocupat (Romanian), hae ane's ain tae dae (Scots), ha händerna fulla (Swedish)

Alternative forms

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "has one's hands full",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
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    {
      "form": "having one's hands full",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
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    },
    {
      "form": "had one's hands full",
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      "form": "had one's hands full",
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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          "kind": "other",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He already has his hands full with two kids and a full-time job, yet he still makes time to volunteer.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "c. 1603, Walter Raleigh, Apology for the Voyage to Guiana:",
          "text": "They had their hands full to defend themselves from firing.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be busy or thoroughly preoccupied."
      ],
      "id": "en-have_one's_hands_full-en-verb-en:be_busy_or_thoroughly_preoccupied",
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        [
          "busy",
          "busy"
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          "preoccupied",
          "preoccupied"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be busy or thoroughly preoccupied."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "handful"
        },
        {
          "word": "have one's hands tied"
        },
        {
          "word": "tie one's hands"
        }
      ],
      "senseid": [
        "en:be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "obsolete"
          ],
          "word": "have one's handful"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "note": "olla kädet täynnä (subject in adessive)",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "note": "olla yllin kyllin tekemistä (subject in adessive)",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "word": "alle Hände voll zu tun haben"
        },
        {
          "code": "is",
          "lang": "Icelandic",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "word": "hafa nóg á sinni könnu"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "tags": [
            "imperfective"
          ],
          "word": "mieć pełne ręce roboty"
        },
        {
          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "word": "estar de mãos cheias"
        },
        {
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "note": "no equivalent term in Romanian",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
        },
        {
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "word": "but see foarte ocupat"
        },
        {
          "code": "sco",
          "lang": "Scots",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "word": "hae ane's ain tae dae"
        },
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          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
          "word": "ha händerna fulla"
        }
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  "word": "have one's hands full"
}
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    {
      "form": "had one's hands full",
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        "participle",
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      "form": "had one's hands full",
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "handful"
    },
    {
      "word": "have one's hands tied"
    },
    {
      "word": "tie one's hands"
    }
  ],
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        "Terms with Swedish translations"
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        {
          "text": "He already has his hands full with two kids and a full-time job, yet he still makes time to volunteer.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "c. 1603, Walter Raleigh, Apology for the Voyage to Guiana:",
          "text": "They had their hands full to defend themselves from firing.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be busy or thoroughly preoccupied."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "busy",
          "busy"
        ],
        [
          "preoccupied",
          "preoccupied"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be busy or thoroughly preoccupied."
      ],
      "senseid": [
        "en:be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
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      "tags": [
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  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
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      "word": "have one's handful"
    }
  ],
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    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "note": "olla kädet täynnä (subject in adessive)",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "note": "olla yllin kyllin tekemistä (subject in adessive)",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "word": "alle Hände voll zu tun haben"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "word": "hafa nóg á sinni könnu"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "tags": [
        "imperfective"
      ],
      "word": "mieć pełne ręce roboty"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "word": "estar de mãos cheias"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "note": "no equivalent term in Romanian",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "word": "but see foarte ocupat"
    },
    {
      "code": "sco",
      "lang": "Scots",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "word": "hae ane's ain tae dae"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "be busy or thoroughly preoccupied",
      "word": "ha händerna fulla"
    }
  ],
  "word": "have one's hands full"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.