on the one hand

idiom

variants or on one hand

—used to introduce a statement that is followed by another contrasting statement which is typically introduced with on the other hand

On the one hand, I think the price is fair, but on the other hand, I really can't afford to spend that much money.

On one hand, there is the historical, real person—George Washington the President—but on the other hand, there is the legendary person—George Washington the cherry-tree chopper.

—Anthony Hollingsworth

Examples of on the one hand in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Faced with climate change on the one hand and the material demands of new energy infrastructure on the other, perhaps humanity will finally figure out how to reuse the gazillions of tons of resources it’s already dug up. —Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2023

His tone through the call is subdued compared to the president’s: a product, perhaps, of King knowing that, on the one hand, the Government is asking for his help (not just on bringing peace to America but in supporting its escalating war in Vietnam) yet on the other hand is trying to destroy him. —Matt Thompson, Spin, 10 Sep. 2023

The discontent has underscored a widening divide on a continent that is on the one hand committed to acting on climate change but on the other often deeply divided about how to do it and who should pay for it. —Claire Moses, New York Times, 26 Aug. 2023

Researchers found that, on the one hand, individuals who have low sleep reactivity tend to have fewer problems with sleep when they're stressed. —Amanda MacMillan, Health, 6 Aug. 2023

There have always been two facts in tension: on the one hand, Oppenheimer helped create a weapon of mass destruction that was used to kill hundreds of thousands of people. —Megan McCluskey, Time, 25 July 2023

Ultimately, these viral moments shed light on the frustrations and aspirations of the Palestinian people, caught between the conflict with Israel on the one hand and their own unpopular leadership on the other. —Abeer Salman, CNN, 14 July 2023

That’s when Black and White people who had marched side by side in the early civil rights movement started drifting toward the worldview of Black Power on the one hand and the more hardhearted politics of neoliberalism and neoconservatism on the other. —Mark Whitaker, Washington Post, 23 June 2023

So on the one hand, if Prigozhin had been successful, maybe there would have been some way to think about this war being wound down, some armistice, some freezing of conflict at least, maybe even an agreement on a cease-fire. —Gregory F. Treverton, Fortune, 5 July 2023

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