Dictionary

numb-handed en · ADJ

Etymology

From numb + handed.

Meanings

1. Having hands that are numb.
   • I was in the delivery room as she was born into this world, nauseated by the excitement and numb-handed from Izzy squeezing the life from my digits. 2010, Joe Boxer, Memoirs of a Serial Bachelor, →ISBN, page 40:
   • Soaked to the skin and numb-handed, we secured the boat between two grounded bergs and camped in a long-deserted Inuit hut. 2009, Ranulph Fiennes, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, →ISBN:
   • The wine-dark seas pass under, and the heavy boats swing round, and the men roll their nets and go, numb-handed, backs bent, harbor bound, gift-laden, home: where light, fast fading, locks land in gold, and gulls cross, crying, the scene, and cross again, crying. 2014, Risa Bear, Collected Poems, →ISBN:
2. Inept or clumsy.
   • Bette Mandl, who had the original idea for this very special issue on O'Neill and Gender, contacted a particularly fine array of experts in that burgeoning field of study, and pretty much created the entire issue with her usual diligence and grace, leaving numb-handed but happy-hearted me with little to do but sit back and marvel at the splendor of the whole package. 1995, The Eugene O'Neill Review - Volume 19, page 3:
   • 'Oh, you scandalous, hypocritical, rusty-booted, numb-handed son of a puffing corn-cutter, why don't you turn your attention to feeding hens, cultivating cabbages, or making pantaloons for small folk, instead of killing hounds in this wholesale way'! roared Jack; an enquiry that set him foaming again. 2014, Robert Smith Surtees, Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour:
   • He signs the painting in a vigorous but numb-handed red - always he finds the signature the most uncomfortable strokes in the canvas - and steps back to observe... 1978, Sam Borenstein, Texts by William Kuhns and Léo Rosshandler, page 14:
   • Most folks associate London with White Fang, The Call of the Wild, and struggling numb-handed to start a fire in the snow. (You know how that one ends.) 2014, Leath Tonino, Masters of Dig: A tour of authorial abodes:

Forms