Search Result for "left-handed":
Wordnet 3.0
ADJECTIVE (6)
1. using or intended for the left hand;
- Example: "left-handed golfers need left-handed clubs"
- Example: "left-handed scissors"
2. (of marriages) illicit or informal;
- Example: "in Colonial America left-handed marriages between Frenchmen and Indians were frequent"
3. (of marriages) of a marriage between one of royal or noble birth and one of lower rank; valid but with the understanding that the rank of the inferior remains unchanged and offspring do not succeed to titles or property of the superior;
[syn: morganatic, left-handed]
4. rotating to the left;
[syn: levorotary, levorotatory, left-handed]
5. ironically ambiguous;
- Example: "a left-handed compliment"
6. lacking physical movement skills, especially with the hands;
- Example: "a bumbling mechanic"
- Example: "a bungling performance"
- Example: "ham-handed governmental interference"
- Example: "could scarcely empty a scuttle of ashes, so handless was the poor creature"- Mary H. Vorse
[syn: bumbling, bungling, butterfingered, ham-fisted, ham-handed, handless, heavy-handed, left-handed]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Left-handed \Left"-hand`ed\, a. 1. Having the left hand or arm stronger and more dexterous than the right; using the left hand and arm with more dexterity than the right. [1913 Webster] 2. Clumsy; awkward; unlucky; insincere; sinister; malicious; as, a left-handed compliment. [1913 Webster] The commendations of this people are not always left-handed and detractive. --Landor. [1913 Webster] 3. Having a direction contrary to that of the hands of a watch when seen in front; -- said of a twist, a rotary motion, etc., looked at from a given direction. [1913 Webster] Left-handed marriage, a morganatic marriage. See Morganatic. Left-handed screw, a screw constructed to advance away from the observer, when turned, as in a nut, with a left-handed rotation. An ordinary wood screw is right-handed. [1913 Webster] Left-handednessEaston's 1897 Bible Dictionary:
Left-handed (Judg. 3:15; 20:16), one unable to use the right hand skilfully, and who therefore uses the left; and also one who uses the left as well as the right, ambidexter. Such a condition of the hands is due to physical causes. This quality was common apparently in the tribe of Benjamin.
