lift one's hand against

present singular third person lifts one's hand against · participle present lifting one's hand against · participle past lifted one's hand against · past lifted one's hand against · alternative lift hand against · alternative lift a hand against

1. idiomaticTo assault physically.

   I’m determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!

   1850, Charles Dickens, chapter 42, in David Copperfield, page 440

   3 more examples

   […] if David refus’d to lift his hand against the Lords anointed, the matter between them was not tyranny, but private enmity, and David as a private person had bin his own revenger, not so much the peoples;

   1649, John Milton, The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, page 21

   […] an Officer of the Guards, on whom I was a little jocose, gave me a Box on the Ear, bidding me make free with my Equals. This very Fellow had been my Butt for many Years, without daring to lift his Hand against me.

   1743, Henry Fielding, chapter 18, in A Journey from This World to the Next, page 150

   And what did vagabonds do? Did they not live without law or custom, without faith or purpose, might they not then lift their hand against any other, any man who stood between them and the pitiful gain that they were seeking?

   1948, Alan Paton, chapter 13, in Cry, the Beloved Country, page 87