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hands-off
[ handz-awf, -of ]
adjective
- characterized by nonintervention or noninterference:
the new hands-off foreign policy.
- remote or unfriendly; estranging:
a truculent, hands-off manner toward strangers.
hands-off
adjective
- (of a machine, device, etc) without need of manual operation
- denoting a policy, etc, of deliberate noninvolvement
a hands-off strategy towards industry
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Word History and Origins
Origin of hands-off1
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Idioms and Phrases
An order to stop touching or interfering with something, as in Hands off the cake, children! This idiom is also put as keep one's hands off , as in She knew she had to keep her hands off so he could learn to tie his shoes by himself . [Mid-1500s]Discover More
Example Sentences
The slippery slope argument is a way of keeping the hands-off-the-Internet-entirely philosophy going.
For years, President Obama took a hands-off approach to Iraqi politics.
For the most part, the colonels and generals were hands-off and allowed us to do the job we were trained to do.
What do you think of a federal hands-off policy that defers to the states?
Team Obama had better hope its hands-off strategy for saving the two-state solution works.
Secretary Johnson had obviously adopted a hands-off policy on integration.
So far as foreign powers are concerned, we have laid down the principle of "Hands-off."
We interfered under a most questionable extension of the Monroe Doctrine, and asserted the principle of "Hands-off."
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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