v. t. | 1. | To touch; to feel with the hand; to use or hold with the hand. | |||
2. | To manage in using, as a spade or a musket; to wield; often, to manage skillfully. | ||||
3. | To accustom to the hand; to work upon, or take care of, with the hands. | ||||
4. | To receive and transfer; to have pass through one's hands; hence, to buy and sell; | ||||
5. | To deal with; to make a business of. | ||||
6. | To treat; to use, well or ill. | ||||
7. | To manage; to control; to practice skill upon. | ||||
8. | To use or manage in writing or speaking; to treat, as a theme, an argument, or an objection.
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v. i. | 1. | To use the hands. | |||
n. | 1. | That part of vessels, instruments, etc., which is held in the hand when used or moved, as the haft of a sword, the knob of a door, the bail of a kettle, etc. | |||
2. | That of which use is made; the instrument for effecting a purpose; a tool.
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Noun | 1. | handle - the appendage to an object that is designed to be held in order to use or move it; "he grabbed the hammer by the handle"; "it was an old briefcase but it still had a good grip" |
Verb | 1. | handle - be in charge of, act on, or dispose of; "I can deal with this crew of workers"; "This blender can't handle nuts"; "She managed her parents' affairs after they got too old" |
2. | handle - interact in a certain way; "Do right by her"; "Treat him with caution, please"; "Handle the press reporters gently" | |
3. | handle - deal with verbally or in some form of artistic expression; "This book deals with incest"; "The course covered all of Western Civilization"; "The new book treats the history of China" | |
4. | handle - touch, lift, or hold with the hands; "Don't handle the merchandise" Synonyms: palm | |
5. | handle - handle effectively; "The burglar wielded an axe" Synonyms: wield | |
6. | handle - show and train; "The prize-winning poodle was handled by Mrs. Priscilla Prescott" |
1. | (jargon) | handle - (From Citizen's Band amateur radio slang) An
electronic pseudonym or "nom de guerre" intended to conceal
the user's true identity. Network and BBS handles function as
the same sort of simultaneous concealment and display one
finds on CB. Use of grandiose handles is characteristic of crackers, weenies, spods, and other lower forms of network life; true hackers travel on their own reputations rather than invented legendry. Compare nick. | |
2. | (programming) | handle - (Macintosh) A pointer to a pointer to
dynamically-allocated memory. The extra level of indirection
allows on-the-fly memory compaction (to cut down on
fragmentation) or garbage collection of unused resources,
with minimal impact on the (possibly multiple) parts of the
larger program containing references to the allocated memory. Compare snap (to snap a handle would defeat its purpose). See also aliasing bug, dangling pointer. |