Word: loose-handed Part of Speech: adj Etymology: From loose + handed. 1. With open hand (as opposed to a fist). Example: His punches alternated between uppercuts and loose-handed swipes. Example: He was holding back, a little. The blows were loose-handed. 2. Characterized by broad sweeping movements. Example: "When you are here," Martin cups the air vaguely in loose-handed gesture, "do you feel the freedom around you? Can you feel it?" Example: Varney made an impatient, down-sweeping, loose-handed gesture. "Quit it, Cole!" he said angrily. 3. Casual; undisciplined or haphazard. Example: It was a state of being cumulatively nurtured by a flawless execution of the protocol rehearsed the evening prior (save for her own out-of-order seating), the forgiving tailoring of the bride's gown that gave away no secrets, the fact Mrs. June Helen Grinbar had seen fit to address her mess of a hairdo, and — last but not at all least — the absence of any inappropriate outbursts from Mrs. Geraldine Fessmire who, on the other hand, appeared especially groggy and inattentive during the whole event, making Elba Rae Van Oaks wonder if anyone ever especially audited Mr. Garland's loose-handed administration of her medicines. Example: The rather loose-handed ways in which Wilson presented his history and the generalizations he dared to make are also visible in later years. 4. Lenient, permissive. Example: First, it was traditionally subject to loose-handed regulation, which opened the possibility of returns above the cost of capital to offset. Example: Why should Life be a cruel taskmaster, gaunt and grim, priggish and precise, and not the jolly, generous, loose-handed friend who winks at faults, overlooks lapses, and lets things run free in a happy-go-lucky kind of way, the margin not counting? 5. Spendthrift, profligate. Example: I was so eager to make their bedclothes agreeable and nice, I am afraid I was a bit loose-handed with the starch bottle. Example: From their hair styles to their clothing, from their ability to be patient (Cappy can, Leo can't), and from their banking practices (Cappy's a bit tightfisted, Leo a little loose-handed) to their speech (Cappy's is somewhat shy and gentle, Leo's is eloquent and dramatic), and from their method of reaching for the brass ring on the carousel (Cappy is watchful and carefully calculating, Leo is daring and impulsive), it sometimes seems as though they are from two different Universes. 6. Aimless Example: I'm a model convalescent if I'm waited on by anonymous people whose job it is, but very bad at sitting loose-handed about our own small rooms. Example: Harmen Gerritszoon himself was not a moldered corpse nor an old man remembering, wordless and loose-handed, in the sun; 7. Wild or uncontrolled. Example: In San Diego, at the zoo, this cousin's four-year-old son, left loose-handed by a gossipy mother, had been drawn between the bars and trampled on by a suddenly rogue elephant. Example: We had to hold our teams about half an hour until the immense herd passed. Men that were loose-handed fired many shots among them, and three bucks were killed. 8. Involving wrist action. Example: In which method of receiving the puck—with a fixed stick or a loose-handed stick—do you apply a bigger force to the puck? Example: Then some sand wedges—loose-handed flop shots, cut shots, back in stance, forward in stance, different kinds of lies in the sand bunker. 9. Sketchy and flowing rather than geometric and precise. Example: In a search for the complex shifts of form in the foot's shaping, the drawings present a loose-handed version of planar slices. Example: On the wall to his right, loose-handed paintings in dark, pungent red boasted familiar shapes; varied angles of human faces, mouths stretched open, lips curled back, eyes bulging, teeth clenched and grinding.