Dictionary

well-handed en · ADJ

Meanings

1. Skillful at manual tasks.
   • Thomas DeGrey outlined the basic surgical skills as including the ability to: 'Cauterize well, to let blood well, to be light and well-handed, bold and hardy in dressing of a Horse well'. 2013, Louise Hill Curth, 'A plaine and easie waie to remedie a horse':, →ISBN, page 161:
   • There was now, for instance, that bonny respectable well-handed lass in the village -- Thora Garth -- what objection could there be to her? She would make a good wife to any man, though of course her father was only a fisherman and not overburdened with wealth. 2014, George Mackay Brown, Hawkfall, →ISBN:
   • He has a well-handed wife called Mareon that will bake and brew for seafarers and horsemen. 2014, George Mackay Brown, The Masked Fisherman and Other Stories, →ISBN:
   • She watched the muscles in his forearm flex as he cut the bread with the precision of a well-handed cook, while she fought the urge to lick her lips. 2014, Amber Leigh Williams, Married One Night, →ISBN:
2. Skillfully put together.
   • But the interest of a well-handed argument is, perhaps, as strong an influence as any which can be exerted to control attention. 1889, The Churchman - Volume 60, page 197:
   • A director who loves to over-employ close-ups doesn't help the cliched plot move forward with any speed, but fortunately a well-handed mine disaster does spark up interest in the movie's perennial conflict between capitalists and laborers. 2008, John Howard Reid, Silent Films & Early Talkies on DVD:, →ISBN, page 145:
   • A whole family mythology is gradually set up, as different people's stories begin to intertwine. It is a discontinuous narrative that is well-handed on the whole, with enough common ground between the narratives to hold the book together, although I found the middle parts of James Cleaver's family history far too long, and the repetition of images rather too persistent. 1990, Southerly: A Review of Australian Literature:
3. Having well-formed hands (and arms)
   • May the divine Savitri, the well-handed, well-fingered, and well-armed, clear thee by his might!' 2014, Julius Eggeling, The Satapatha Brahmana, Part III, page 64:
   • A Bairn was born reckoned to be a Man-Child; but, from the Waste up, was two fair Persons, with all Members and Portraitures pertaining to two Bodies, to wit, Two Heads, well-eyed, well-eared, and well-handed. 1728, Robert Lindsay, The History of Scotland: From 21 February, 1436. to March 1563:
   • They were well-faced, well-handed and footed, clear-skinned and white, but wanting color, which they do amend by art. 1852, Charles MacFarlane, Japan, page 59:
4. Having plenty of support.
   • Shafter was also deficient in field artillery, the arm traditionally used to "soften up" defensive positions before an assault. This weakness was partially remedied on 1 July by a well-handed battery of rapid-fire Gatling guns, the first significant use of such weapons by the United States Army. 2013, Benjamin R. Beede, The War of 1898 and U.S. Interventions, 1898 To 1934, →ISBN:
   • I learned from then on never to go to the pictures alone. It was far better to be well-handed, with some of my friends, just in case any trouble broke out. 2011, Colin MacFarlane, The Real Gorbals Story, →ISBN:
   • ... but it also teaches you the value of organization, it shows you the real meaning and import of a well-handed force that makes for good, it sharpens your wit in debate, it loosens your tongue in the right way and in proper channels, and it instills into you a knowledge of parliamentary law and practice that must needs.... 1903, The Car Worker - Volume 1, page 12:
5. (Jamaica, obsolete) Well-supplied with slaves.
   • That there were in this respect few "very well-handed," or to use Mr. Campbell's phrase, "fully slaved eatates," was manifest from the statements of almost every witness to whom the standing question, whether the Islands were sufficiently stocked with slaves, was put. 2010, James Stephen, The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Delineated, →ISBN, page 139:
   • Here an estate, which would plant 103 acres of canes, would, I presume, to be well-handed, have 250 negroes, young and old, which may all, except infants and the very aged, be said to contribulte less or more to the cultivation of the cane; but deducting 100 for infants' nurses, and other ineffective hands, we have, for the remaining 150, 906 lbs each. 1817, Hezekiah Niles, William Ogden Niles, Jeremiah Hughes, Niles' National Register, Volume 11, page 7:
   • On all estates, the boiling goes on night and day, except sunday. But well-handed estates have three spells, and intermissions accordingly. 1789, Great Britain Parliament House of Commons, Abridgment of the Minutes of the Evidence Taken Before a Committee of the Whole House, to whom it was referred to consider the Slave-Trade, page 115:

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