A handprint is the mark left behind when you press your hand against a surface, usually after dipping it in paint, ink, or some other substance. You've probably made handprints in art class, pressing your palm and fingers into paint and then onto paper to create a colorful outline of your hand.

Handprints appear everywhere in human history. Ancient people left handprints on cave walls thousands of years ago, pressing their palms against stone after coating them with clay or charcoal. These prehistoric handprints, found in caves across the world, are some of humanity's oldest art. Today, parents often preserve their baby's tiny handprints as keepsakes, and kindergarteners make handprint turkeys and flowers as holiday decorations.

The word can also describe the impression your hand leaves in soft materials like wet concrete, sand, or snow, even without paint. Investigators sometimes look for handprints at crime scenes to identify who touched something. When you place your hand in the cement outside the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, you're following a tradition started by movie stars who left their handprints in wet concrete as a permanent record of their fame.