glad-hand

the glad hand

The act of addressing one in a friendly manner, often when it is feigned or false. I don't think she actually likes me, so she must have given me the glad hand when she seemed so happy to see me.
See also: glad, hand
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

glad-hand

tv. to greet someone effusively. (The hand is the hand that is offered to quickly to each person who is greeted.) The senator was glad-handing everyone in sight.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • appear to
  • a change of heart
  • a mystery to (one)
  • a yellow streak
  • be in high spirits
  • be in high/low spirits
  • a shoulder to cry on
  • be in low spirits
  • a turn of phrase
  • able to do
References in periodicals archive
Contrast glad-hand Willie McCrea, the DUP's Country and Western defence against Daniel O'Donnell.
Hasselbaink may have the fans on his back but the Leeds players gave him the glad-hand and the high-fives at setting up Smith's easily taken strike.
Traditionally contests last for three and a bit weeks, but the demands of rolling 24-hour news and the fashion for criss-crossing the country to glad-hand carefully selected ``ordinary'' folk is gruelling for all concerned.
The star nipped into HarperCollins the other day to glad-hand executives.
The two players were hoping to glad-hand Britain's up-and-coming artists - and no doubt pick up a discount or two - at tonight's first birthday party of The Saatchi Gallery.
Gwyther, who'll be on BBC Three's Liquid News tonight, adds that the rogue peer tried - unsuccessfully - to glad-hand another singing punter, Robbie Williams.
In fact, the ease with which the word is glad-handed by our author leads one to suspect that, in Dutch at least, the word already has some more concrete meaning, especially as the theoretical element of the book is concerned to analyse different types of spirituality as evidenced by three different approaches to transcendence in the work of different artists: 'immanent transcendence' (for example, Caspar David Friedrich's romantic view of nature); 'radical transcendence', as in Barnett Newman's use of Jewish mysticism to distance God from humanity; and 'radical immanence', as represented by Piet Mondrian's theosophically-inspired representation of what he believed to be arcane reality.
China has been the world's great manufacturing sucking sound since its entry into the World Trade Organization was glad-handed by an allegedly pro-union Democrat, President Bill Clinton.
Surprised shoppers called to their friends as he glad-handed passers-by and queued at a market stall.
As Lynn Imergoot, the assistant athletic director at Washington University, sees it, a woman applying for the position of athletic director is at an immediate disadvantage, "because she won't ever be able to smoke cigars with the football glad-hands."
And they all trotted up and glad-handed and grinned and threw their influence and weight behind "Call Me Tony".
Most operatives in GOP politics agree he is probably the best retail politician in the field, and so week after week, Perry attends small events where he speaks off the cuff and glad-hands before and after.
Over the closing laps and with victory already in the bag Pares broke into a smile and glad-handed spectators along the 1,000-metre circuit, carrying the Welsh flag.
He glad-handed Fred the Red before settling into his seat in the away dugout.
The recent preem of Michael Mann's "Collateral" saw star Tom Cruise dazzling a shrieking 3,000-strong Leicester Square crowd: He glad-handed ardent fans for a staggering two hours, 50 minutes --a new personal best--signed autographs and chatted on hastily dialed mobile phones.