drop hands

0 Without context it could mean many things but the first thing that comes to my mind is that it is an instruction that people who are holding hands, should stop holding hands. 0-

The most common use is legalistic. Example "the parties have agreed a drop hands settlement", what it means is that persons who are in some kind of dispute agree to walk away from the dispute leaving the losses where they lie, in other words neither party pursuses his or her arguments any further.

I am guessing the origin of the phrase is from card playing eg poker, where a party "throws

Until I read Anon, I was ready to agree with Nona. It sounded to me like a squaredance instruction.
But Anon's input sounds like a winner.

A "drop hands" offer is an offer made by a party to legal proceedings. In some countries (eg England) the losing side in court pays the costs of both sides. A drop hands offer means that each party should pay its own costs.

The defendant was the claimant’s solicitors in a transaction involving the purchase of Fulham Football Club arising out of which the claimant alleged professional negligence by the defendant, being the alleged costs of buying in a right which had been negligently omitted from the documentation. The defendant contested both liability and quantum. The defendant had made an offer ‘without prejudice

I grew up in Boston, the 60's. To drop hands was a challenge to fist fight. As in "they dropped hands."