• Free-handed

    Full definition of free-handed

    Adjective

    free-handed

    1. (generous).
      • 1844, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Luck of Barry Lyndon, No man has been at greater straits than I, and has borne more pinching poverty and hardship; but nobody can say of me that, if I had a guinea, I was not free-handed with it, and did not spend it as well as a lord could do.
      • 2015, Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, This tendency of his to be liberal and profuse he had acquired from having been a soldier in his youth, for the soldier's life is a school in which the niggard becomes free-handed and the free-handed prodigal
    2. (unassisted).
      • 2009, Giles R. Scuderi & ‎Alfred J. Tria, Minimally Invasive Surgery in Orthopedics, This chapter discusses the role of patellofemoral arthroplasty for isolated patellofemoral arthritis, describes a free-handed, uninstrumented MIS surgical technique, and reviews the results of the procedure (independent of surgical approach).
    3. (unconstrained).
      • 2009, Kenneth C. Wenzer & ‎Ross B. Emmett, Henry George, the Transatlantic Irish, and Their Times, Meanwhile, and contradictorily to this contraction of currency, the collapse of National Bank that had earlier put limits on the free-handed lending policies of state banks allowed these to flood much of the country with cheap paper money.
      • 2002, Henry Schofield, Essays on Constitutional Law and Equity and Other Subjects, But the opinion of Gray, J., in that case can hardly bear the interpretation that State Courts are free to play whatever tricks they please with the State law. ... A retrograde movement to free-handed State judicial iconoclasm is impossible.
    4. (having empty hands).
      • 1990, LakÈ™mi, Ripples in the River, A short way ahead Kaveri was startled to see a woman carrying a child in her arms as well as a load on her head while the man twirled his moustache and walked beside her, free-handed.
    5. (finance) (transferable to other assets).
      • 1943, Garrard Glenn, Mortgages, deeds of trust, and other security devices as to land, Volume 3, This distinction is all the more important when we are in a jurisdiction where the free-handed mortgage of a stock in trade is unlawful.

    Adverb

    free-handed

    1. (generously).
      • 2015, Brander Matthews, Poems of American Patriotism, And all men that have loved right more than ease, And honor above honors; all who gave Free-handed of their best for other men, And thought their giving taking...
    2. (unassisted).
      • 1951, Thomas Mann, The Holy Sinner, The burghers go in velvets and furs, but they have not learned to leap free-handed to horse nor to aim with the lance at the four nailes of the shield, nor yet to ride a buhurd, therefore they need a duke who protects them, and that am I.
      • 2004, Steve Jordan & Judy Ostrow, Painting Kitchens, You can cut in around stained trim or into another color free-handed like a painter or with painter's tape.
    3. (in an unconstrained manner).
      • 2007, Louis A. Pérez, Cuba Between Empires, 1878-1902, To wit: If the United States is to intervene for the pacification of Cuba it should do so free-handed;

    Verb

    verb form

    1. free-handed

      (past of free-hand)
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