on the one hand

English

Alternative forms

• on one hand (often considered incorrect and not found in most dictionaries)

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

on the one hand

1. (sequence, idiomatic) From one point of view.

   On the one hand, it was quite a good bargain, but on the other hand, do we really need a second car?

   • 1950, Bertrand Russell, acceptance speech for Nobel Prize in Literature

     I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.

   • 2012 November 7, Matt Bai, “Winning a Second Term, Obama Will Confront Familiar Headwinds”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     The country’s first black president, and its first president to reach adulthood after the Vietnam War and Watergate, Mr. Obama seemed like a digital-age leader who could at last dislodge the stalemate between those who clung to the government of the Great Society, on the one hand, and those who disdained the very idea of government, on the other.

Coordinate terms

• on the other hand
• on the gripping hand (fanspeak slang)

Translations

from one point of view

• Bulgarian: от една́ страна́ (ot edná straná)
• Catalan: d'una banda
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 一方面 (zh) (yī fāngmiàn), 一來／一来 (zh) (yīlái),

• Danish: på den ene side
• Dutch: enerzijds (nl)
• Esperanto: unuflanke
• Finnish: yhtäältä
• French: d’un côté
• German: zum einen, einerseits (de), einesteils
• Greek: αφενός (el) (afenós)
• Hungarian: egyrészt (hu)
• Italian: da un lato
• Japanese: 一方 (ja) (いっぽう, ippō)
• Lithuanian: viena vertus, iš vienos pusės
• Persian: از یک سو (az yek su)
• Polish: z jednej strony
• Portuguese: por um lado
• Romanian: pe de-o parte
• Russian: с одно́й стороны́ (ru) m (s odnój storoný)
• Scottish Gaelic: air an dàrna làimh
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: с једне стране, у једну руку

  Roman: s jedne strane, u jednu ruku

• Spanish: por un lado
• Swedish: å ena sidan (sv)
• Ukrainian: з одно́го бо́ку (z odnóho bóku)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Esperanto: ^{(please verify)} unuavice