# cross-handed
## English
### Alternative forms

* crosshanded

### Etymology

From cross +‎ handed.

### Adjective

cross-handed (not comparable)
* Done with hands or forearms crossed over each other.
** 2013, Dan Joset, Boost Your Driving Range and Master Your Putting, →ISBN:The cross-handed grip helps in maintaining the wrist position.
* Done by crossing the hand to the other side of the body.
** 2014, Gordon MacQuarrie, More Stories of the Old Duck Hunters, →ISBN:I wonder how it would be to stand right in the beginning of the fast water, at the lip of the pool, and try a cross-handed cast.
* Involving two opposing directions.
** 2011, Alexis Mendez, T. F. Morse, Specialty Optical Fibers Handbook, →ISBN, page 416:Appreciable scattering of cross-handed radiation occurred in the middle of the band, leaving regions near the long- and short-wavelength band edges in which scattering of cross-handed radiation was negligible.
* (obsolete) Back-handed.
** 1900, Signs of the Times, and Doctrinal Advocate and Monitor, Volume 68:We believe and are thoroughly convinced that God's blessings come to his church in a cross-handed way, entirely different, in many instances, from the way we expect them.

#### Derived terms

* cross-handedly

### Adverb

cross-handed (not comparable)
* With hands or forearms crossed over each other.
** 2009, Dr. Craig L. Farnsworth, The Putting Prescription: The Doctor's Proven Method for a Better Stroke, →ISBN, pages 42–43:Both Arnold Palmer and Gary Player have been quoted as saying that if they could change one thing about their games, they would have putted cross-handed early in their career.
* While crossing the hand to the other side of the body.
** 2007, James Brady, Warning of War: A Novel of the North China Marines, →ISBN, page 297:Joe got them to rig him a holster so he could draw the .45 cross-handed.
* In two opposing directions.
** 1836 October, Washington Irving, chapter X, in Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: [Henry Charles] Carey, [Isaac] Lea, & Blanchard, →OCLC, pages 109–110:The merchant fishermen at the falls acted as middlemen or factors, and passed the objects of traffic, as it were, cross-handed; trading away part of the wares received from the mountain tribes to those of the rivers and plains, and vice versa: […]
** 1975, Hans G. Furth, Harry Wachs, Thinking Goes to School: Piaget's Theory in Practice, →ISBN, page 79:Or he can walk cross-handed following the principle of the cross-legged walk. In this variation, he can move forward, backward, or sideways.
* (rowing) Facing forward and pushing the oars away from the body on the power stroke (rather than facing backward and pulling the oars on the power stroke).
** 1844, Rufus Dawes, Nix's Mate: An Historical Romance of America, →ISBN:Just then, a sailor, who had crossed the channel, and was making rapid headway, by rowing cross-handed, emerged from behind a merchant vessel which was moored at the wharf.
* Idly.
** 1978, Israel Digest - Volume 21, page 29:Why do we sit cross-handed and do nothing which would serve as a basis upon which to build the salvation of our people?
* (obsolete) Back-handedly.
** 1835, The Spiritual magazine, or Saint's Treasury, Volume XI, page 305:..the end has been answered, though the channel of conveyance has been in direct opposition to what I wanted or expected, like as Jacob in blessing Joseph's sons, he wittingly—ah it is wittingly indeed, we are blessed; namely, cross-handed.