well-handed
Part of speech: adj
Morphological type: simple
Inflected forms:
form: more well-handed
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most well-handed
pos: adj
tags: superlative
Senses:
gloss: Skillful at manual tasks.
pos: adj
examples: 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'.
He has a well-handed wife called Mareon that will bake and brew for seafarers and horsemen.
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.
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.
gloss: Skillfully put together.
pos: adj
examples: But the interest of a well-handed argument is, perhaps, as strong an influence as any which can be exerted to control attention.
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.
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.
gloss: Having well-formed hands (and arms)
pos: adj
examples: May the divine Savitri, the well-handed, well-fingered, and well-armed, clear thee by his might!'
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.
They were well-faced, well-handed and footed, clear-skinned and white, but wanting color, which they do amend by art.
gloss: Having plenty of support.
pos: adj
examples: ... 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....
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.
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.
gloss: Well-supplied with slaves.
pos: adj
tags: Jamaica
obsolete
examples: On all estates, the boiling goes on night and day, except sunday. But well-handed estates have three spells, and intermissions accordingly.
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.
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.
Translations: