change hands
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
be sold or transferred to a new owner
Literally: hands changing possession
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
And it's all done with flashing eyes, waving arms, tossed heads and wringing hands.
All the existing Sundays except the News of the World (six out of seven) changed hands between 1981 and 1985.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “change hands” mean?
be sold or transferred to a new owner Literally: hands changing possession
Is “change hands” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.