Handtame
adj, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 To cause (someone or something) to become accustomed to being handled
"Even children can handtame wild birds, if they follow Al Martin's simple directions."
- 1 Tame and accustomed to being held in the hand; (by extension) mild; meek; humble; docile
"I badly wanted a little more time to work on training them, but simply couldn't find it — so while they grew up friendly and confident, you couldn't exactly called them handtame."
Example
More examples"I badly wanted a little more time to work on training them, but simply couldn't find it — so while they grew up friendly and confident, you couldn't exactly called them handtame."
Etymology
From Middle English handtame, from Old English handtam (“tame enough to be handled”), from Proto-West Germanic *handutam, equivalent to hand + tame. Cognate with Dutch handtam (“handtame”), German Low German handtamm (“handtame”), German handzahm (“handtame”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.