glad-hand

See also: gladhand and glad hand

English

Alternative forms

Verb

glad-hand (third-person singular simple present glad-hands, present participle glad-handing, simple past and past participle glad-handed)

  1. (transitive) To be overly friendly with (a stranger) in order to gain an advantage.
    • 1948 February 9, “The Presidency: Getting Ready”, in Time‎[1], archived from the original on 1 February 2011:
      Not in many a moon had he glad-handed so many people. […] The President, in fact, behaved noticeably like a candidate for reelection.
    • 2020 [2019 September 17], Edward Snowden, Permanent Record (autobiography; paperback), Pan Books, →ISBN:
      Whenever I wasn’t glad-handing NTOC [National Threat Operations Center] leadership at headquarters, I spent my time learning everything I could—“hot-desking” with analysts who worked different programs and different types of targets, so as to be able to teach my fellow team members back in Hawaii the newest ways the agency’s tools might be used.
    • 2022 May 26, Peter Bradshaw, “Pacifiction review – trouble in paradise, in apocalyptic Tahitian mystery”, in The Guardian‎[2]:
      He hangs out at the local club owned by Morton, another white expatriate, played by the reliably unsettling Sergi López, and De Roller grinningly ogles the almost naked bar staff and glad-hands all the other seedy officials there.
  2. To extend a glad hand (to someone); to welcome warmly.

Derived terms

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