hands down
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
without a doubt or competition
Literally: with hands lowered
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
If, for example, you compared real, unground coffee beans with instant coffee by simply pouring boiling water over both, of course the instant would win hands down.
It's on your chart Can I just write this on the wall, then I'll come back Right, pens down everybody then please, pens down who's feeling very brave this morning?
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “hands down” mean?
without a doubt or competition Literally: with hands lowered
Is “hands down” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.