handed

verb

Definition of handednext
past tense of hand
1
as in provided
to put (something) into the possession of someone for use or consumption was happy to hand her grandmother's cookie recipes to the parish ladies to put in their cookbook

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in passed
to shift possession of (something) from one person to another the clerk handed her the receipt

Synonyms & Similar Words
3
as in left
to put (something) into the possession or safekeeping of another handed me her bundles while she fished for her house keys

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of handed During Thursday’s sentencing, he was handed a four-and-a-half-year sentence, the BBC, The Guardian and The Telegraph reported. — Angel Saunders, PEOPLE, 4 Sep. 2026 Therefore, how much of the impact caused by El Niño will ultimately translate into the bills handed to consumers remains to be seen. — CNBC, 3 Sep. 2026 The jury on Wednesday handed Massachusetts Superior Court Judge William Sullivan its second deadlock notice, alerting the court that the nine women and three men could not reach a unanimous decision on Clancy’s fate. — Rebecca Cohen, NBC news, 3 Sep. 2026 There’s an inventiveness here that comes from the sprawl of the city — artists like myself who are constantly improvising, building their own ecosystems because nothing is handed to them. — Shelley Holcomb, Los Angeles Times, 3 Sep. 2026 However, he wasn’t entirely convinced by the Italian job when Ritchie and co-writer Matthew Read handed him scripts. — Jesse Whittock, Deadline, 3 Sep. 2026 The deal also included no guard rails for how the $10 million should be spent, allowing it to be handed directly to two organizations without any effort to seek competitive bids. — Sofia Saric, Miami Herald, 27 Aug. 2026 An hour later, a nurse handed Esther Bendera her newborn grandson. — ABC News, 26 Aug. 2026 Thus this year’s list honors those who do more than wear clothes well or live their lives in head-to-toe ensembles handed to them by eager PR apparatchiks. — Vanity Fair, 25 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for handed
  1. provided
  2. passed
  3. transferred
  4. gave
  5. reached
  6. entrusted
  7. supplied
  8. delivered
Verb
  • According to a probable cause affidavit, the former campaign manager gave local police a black nylon glove that Ross is alleged to have provided in June.
    — Ava Kelley, NBC news, 4 Sep. 2026
  • In an unintentionally Dickensian fashion, a recent batch of BLS reports provided some deeper context as to how the labor market is being reshaped.
    — Alicia Wallace, CNN Money, 3 Sep. 2026
Definition of provided
Verb
  • From the moment Billie learns about Sophie-Rose, the teenager who inherited her legendary fake ID after it was already passed down to multiple other Gen-Z blondes, she’s obsessed.
    — Ben Rosenstock, Vulture, 28 Aug. 2026
  • That's a fraction of the roughly 130 vessels that passed through the vital waterway daily before the war began.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of passed
Verb
  • Instead, detectives say the group used falsified invoices and documents and transferred cash into personal bank accounts.
    — Chelsea Jones, CBS News, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Defense lawyers have argued that the CIA’s treatment of Mohammed undermined the voluntariness of his later statements to the FBI, even though those interrogations took place after he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
    — Rena Rowe, The Washington Examiner, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of transferred
Verb
  • Rocket Lab was supposed to have a satellite on standby to go up and inspect True Anomaly’s spacecraft, ready to launch on short notice once military officials gave the order.
    — Eric Berger, ArsTechnica, 26 June 2026
  • Additionally, prosecutors allege Rincker gave Alvarez a 12-gauge pump action shotgun, Jamioles said.
    — Caroline Zimmerman, Kansas City Star, 23 June 2026
Definition of gave
Verb
  • That’s the group of free agents who garner the most attention, players who have reached six years of service time or more.
    — Evan Drellich, New York Times, 28 Aug. 2026
  • The companies’ interest in the Monarch data center shows how the feeding frenzy for compute has reached a new pitch as AI companies look to nail down capacity amid the AI buildout.
    — J.D. Capelouto, semafor.com, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of reached
Verb
  • District 203 is entrusted with hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer resources.
    — Jennifer Bruzan Taylor, Chicago Tribune, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Throughout his career, Satsky has been entrusted with highly confidential information involving some of the largest and most significant transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors, his lawyer, Anello said.
    — Chase Jordan August 27, Charlotte Observer, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of entrusted
Verb
  • Turkey is known to have supplied Sudan’s military with TB2 drones after the country’s current civil war began in April 2023.
    — Paul Iddon, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2026
  • The recall is connected to an ongoing multistate salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeños supplied by Coast Citrus Distributors.
    — Anthony Thompson, USA Today, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of supplied
Verb
  • The system controls bleed air delivered to pilots through their oxygen masks.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Another speech that has remained in the collective memory was the one delivered in Kiberg in 1992, during a trip to northern Norway.
    — Stefania Conrieri, Vanity Fair, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of delivered

Browse Nearby Words

hand down
handed
handed down
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Cite this Entry

“Handed.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/handed. Accessed 4 Sep. 2026.

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