Meaning of hand wringing | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The repeated clasping or squeezing of the hands as a symptom of distress.
   countable, uncountable
2. A feigned exhibition of distress, usually with implied inaction or vacillating in the face of a dilemma or crisis.
   countable, figuratively, uncountable

Examples

“Whisperings filled the corridors with unearthly sounds — the hand-wringing and breast-beating of the elder sisters — the sighs and sobs of the younger.”

“On the one hand, there is the danger of ineffectual and often counterproductive conservative handwringing over the crisis.”

“As noted, the confusion and hand wringing about who should do what mostly flows from a failure to clearly think through what an epidemic is and what will be demanded in response.”

“And Andrew Marantz reminisced about Tucker Carlson’s wondrous reign at Fox News: “And who could forget the ‘Tucker Carlson Originals’ special ‘The End of Men,’ […]? That special also featured hand-wringing about ‘soy boys,’ paeans to raw-egg slonkers and homoerotic montages, apparently filmed on Alex Jones’s bocce court, […].””

“The hand-wringing hypocrisy and the pant-wetting that we are seeing over someone criticising the police correctly is amazing.”

CEFR level