# What does ‘have your hands full’ mean?

To “have your hands full” means to be very busy or preoccupied. A long-standing English idiom recorded from the 16th century.

## What it means

- A long-standing English idiom recorded from the 16th century.

## Action steps

1. Standard, mild way to describe being overloaded.
2. Example: With three kids, she has her hands full.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/brewers-dictionary-of-phrase-and-fable)

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