underhanded
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Forms: form: more underhanded
form: most underhanded
form: under-handed
Etymology: From under- + handed.
Senses: examples: text: Golf is an underhanded game, because we must swing the club in an underhanded motion in order to play the ball off the ground.
ref: 2011, Edward A Tischler, The Way Of The Golfer: Searching For New Horizons, →ISBN, page 25:
glosses: Done by moving the hand (and arm) from below.
examples: text: His underhanded trick backfired and he was disqualified.
text: They were actually underhanded threats to call off the lawsuit and then all insurance agents in the hospital district would get a dividend for the premiums paid.
ref: 2007, Dewey Anderson, When Satan Came to Moose Lake, →ISBN, page 118:
text: Was the federal government being underhanded and hypocritical in officially praising the merits of federalism, but in missing no opportunity to promote Canadian nationalism?
ref: 2009, Alain-G. Gagnon, Contemporary Canadian Federalism, →ISBN:
text: The pap phoned and we told him that Kirschner probably peddled them himself and now was accusing you of acting underhanded so he did not have out to pay out any more dough.
ref: 2010, Al Walentis, Polly Kahl, The Secret World of Jon and Kate, →ISBN, page 152:
text: There were underhanded ploys that were effective but were deplored by the hospital administration.
ref: 2014, Carl Douglass, The Long Climb, →ISBN:
glosses: Sly, dishonest, corrupt, cheating.
examples: text: An underhanded compliment is actually criticism.
text: Of course, sometimes compliments just aren't really compliments. Underhanded compliments are, for better or worse, nothing new or unusual.
ref: 2012, Hanne Blank, The Unapologetic Fat Girl's Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts, →ISBN, page 56:
text: Poking underhanded fun at the contestants live on stage was absolutely inexcusable.
ref: 2013, Charmaine Ross, Makeover Miracle, →ISBN:
text: “Have you seen my film?” He's asking about Election, his deliriously sardonic and underhanded satire of politics and high school culture that follows trepidatious government teacher (Matthew Broderick) through increasingly bizarre attempts to sideline a senior's fanatical student body presidential campaign.
ref: 2014, Julie Levinson, Alexander Payne: Interviews, →ISBN:
glosses: Insincere; sarcastic.
examples: text: And, although the mystery of an unsigned note rather thrilled her, it seemed underhanded. And June hated underhanded things.
ref: 1903, Arthur Wellington Brayley, Arthur Wilson Tarbell, Joe Mitchell Chapple, National Magazine - Volume 19, page 493:
text: A general agreement should be made among the nations, that henceforth, all underhanded diplomatic agreements be abolished, and that complete publicity be observed in discussing and transacting international affairs.
ref: 1918, Cambrian ... Published in the Interest of the Welsh People and Their Descendants in the United States Volume 38:
text: He moved in closer, covertly noticing Vienna's underhanded peek.
ref: 2011, Celine Flux, Sit-Ups and Supersex, →ISBN, page 289:
glosses: Secret; surreptitious.
examples: text: Between 9.30, when the first shot was fired, and 11.45 a.m., the enemy, well aware of his vast superiority in men — the ' Intrepid,' being, as was usual with the Company's cruisers, underhanded — made two attempts to run her on board and throw an overpowering force on the brig's decks.
ref: 1877, Charles Rathbone Low, History of the Indian Navy: (1613-1863), page 209:
text: Jude and me can make out to work the boat and get a livin', but we're too underhanded for a big job.
ref: 2008, H. De Vere Stacpoole, Satan: a Story of the Sea King's Country, →ISBN, page 51:
text: The government believed that most plantations in St. Vincent were “underhanded” and the phenomenon of runaways, or marronage, only exacerbated the problem.
ref: 2012, Christopher Taylor, The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna, page 1617033111:
glosses: Understaffed.
Synonyms: sense: all, except "understaffed"
word: underhand
sense: shorthanded
word: understaffed
sense: insincere
word: backhanded
Derived terms: underhandedly
underhandedness