Other forms: handling, handled, handles
A handle is the part of a thing you are meant to hold: the loop on a suitcase, the bar across a fridge door, the wooden grip on a saucepan. If it sticks out and your fingers close round it, that is the handle.
The verb starts with your hands and then keeps going. You handle a hot dish with a cloth, and a warehouse handles ten thousand parcels a night — that is the physical half. But you also handle a difficult customer, handle the money, handle the pressure, and I'll handle it means leave this one to me. Three phrases carry the word further still: fly off the handle is to lose your temper with no warning, get a handle on something is to begin to understand it, and too hot to handle is more trouble than anybody wants. Online, your handle is the name you post under.
1noungripThe part of an object made to be held.~35%
“The handle came off the kettle in my hand.”
synonyms: grip
2verbhandleTo deal with a person, a job, or a situation and keep it under control.~40%
“She handled the complaint without raising her voice.”
synonyms: cope with, see to
3verbtouchTo touch, hold, or move something with your hands.~23%
“Handle the eggs carefully, the box is damp.”
4nounnameThe name someone uses online.~2%
“His handle is the same on every site.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 17 sentences found in the wild and placed 17 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: manage
Handle is hand with a small ending stuck on it — the Old English handle was the hand-part of a tool. The verb handlian was already doing both jobs a thousand years ago: to feel a thing with your fingers, and to deal with it, discuss it, take it on.
Proto-West Germanic
*handulā — handle
Old English
handle — handle
Middle English
handel
English, today
handle
From Middle English handel, handle, from Old English handle (“handle”), from Proto-West Germanic handulā (“handle”). See verb below. Cognate with German Hantel (“dumbbell, barbell”), Danish handel (“handle”). Related to hand.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA