Brewer's: Kiss Hands

(To). To kiss the hand of the sovereign either on accepting or retiring from a high government office. (See Kiss.)

“Kissing the hand to the statute of a god was a Roman form of adoration.” —Spencer: Principles of Sociology, vol. ii. part iv. chap. 6, p. 123.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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