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"Hands down" is a term meaning "easily" or "with little or no effort." It's used most often in the context of a competition or comparison, as in the sentence "Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive is hands-down the most significant cultural event of the last decade." (Editors' Note: Sentence used for demonstration purposes only.) We stumbled upon several wrong guesses, but just about all the etymological sites we came across agreed that the term dates back to the mid-19th century and the genteel world of British horse
racing. Back then, a jockey who found himself way ahead as he approached the finish line would relax his grip on the reins and drop his hands. Not as confrontational as a spiked football, but still a bit of gestural in-your-face-ness. By the late 19th century, the idiom had been extended to non-racing contexts, and it remains in frequent use today.
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