To be overly friendly with (a stranger) in order to gain an advantage.
Not in many a moon had he glad-handed so many people. […] The President, in fact, behaved noticeably like a candidate for reelection.1948 February 9, “The Presidency: Getting Ready”, in Time, archived from the original on 01 Feb 2011:
Whenever I wasn’t glad-handing NTOC [National Threat Operations Center] leadership at headquarters, I spent my time learning everything I could—“hot-desking” with analysts who worked different programs and different types of targets, so as to be able to teach my fellow team members back in Hawaii the newest ways the agency’s tools might be used.2019 September 17, Edward Snowden, Permanent Record, New York, N.Y.: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN:
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He hangs out at the local club owned by Morton, another white expatriate, played by the reliably unsettling Sergi López, and De Roller grinningly ogles the almost naked bar staff and glad-hands all the other seedy officials there.2022 May 26, Peter Bradshaw, “Pacifiction review – trouble in paradise, in apocalyptic Tahitian mystery”, in The Guardian:
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To extend a glad hand (to someone); to welcome warmly.
And with that he gave me the "glad hand" and a pat on the shoulder.1917 July 23, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 180, column 2:
The young men who will get the corporate glad hand are some of the most sought after graduates of the class of '64.1964 June 19, “Most Likely to Succeed”, in Time:
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A coupling device used on semi-trailer trucks for attaching air brake lines from the tractor to the trailer.