See have a handle on in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for have a handle on meaning in English (2.2kB)
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "has a handle on",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "having a handle on",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "had a handle on",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "had a handle on",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "have<has,,had> a handle on"
},
"expansion": "have a handle on (third-person singular simple present has a handle on, present participle having a handle on, simple past and past participle had a handle on)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [],
"examples": [
{
"text": "To work efficiently, it's important to have a handle on the procedures involved."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To understand or grasp."
],
"id": "en-have_a_handle_on-en-verb-S4t90igI",
"links": [
[
"understand",
"understand"
],
[
"grasp",
"grasp"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To understand or grasp."
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "100 0",
"word": "get a handle on"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "22 78",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2003, Tony Hillerman, The Sinister Pig, page 36",
"text": "But the other three problems had all grown out of assigning jobs to people he had no handle on.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011, H. Henrietta Stockel, Drumbeats from Mescalero, page 82",
"text": "We don't have to report to them anymore, but they still have a handle on our Justice Department and the police.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To be in control of, to have power over."
],
"id": "en-have_a_handle_on-en-verb-KljXkUJY",
"links": [
[
"control",
"control"
],
[
"power",
"power"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To be in control of, to have power over."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-have a handle on.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9a/En-au-have_a_handle_on.ogg/En-au-have_a_handle_on.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/En-au-have_a_handle_on.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "have a handle on"
}
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English verbs"
],
"forms": [
{
"form": "has a handle on",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "having a handle on",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "had a handle on",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "had a handle on",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "have<has,,had> a handle on"
},
"expansion": "have a handle on (third-person singular simple present has a handle on, present participle having a handle on, simple past and past participle had a handle on)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "get a handle on"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English idioms"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "To work efficiently, it's important to have a handle on the procedures involved."
}
],
"glosses": [
"To understand or grasp."
],
"links": [
[
"understand",
"understand"
],
[
"grasp",
"grasp"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To understand or grasp."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2003, Tony Hillerman, The Sinister Pig, page 36",
"text": "But the other three problems had all grown out of assigning jobs to people he had no handle on.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011, H. Henrietta Stockel, Drumbeats from Mescalero, page 82",
"text": "We don't have to report to them anymore, but they still have a handle on our Justice Department and the police.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To be in control of, to have power over."
],
"links": [
[
"control",
"control"
],
[
"power",
"power"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To be in control of, to have power over."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-have a handle on.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9a/En-au-have_a_handle_on.ogg/En-au-have_a_handle_on.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/En-au-have_a_handle_on.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "have a handle on"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c 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.
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.