Definify.com

Definition 2024

See also: deadhanded

dead-handed ‎(comparative more dead-handed, superlative most dead-handed)

Mindless, plodding, or passive; stultifying
- 1928, D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover:
  No, it was stupid, dead-handed higher authority that made the army dead: absolutely fool-dead.
- 1971, Chester Bowles, Promises to keep: my years in public life, 1941-1969, page 377:
  In contrast, Washington was like a cold bath on a January morning; we were quickly made aware of the dead-handed grasp of the bureaucracy, the unwillingness of all but a few top leaders to consider old problems in fresh terms
- 2013, Sean Beaudoin, Wise Young Fool, ISBN 0316235105:
  There's a wash of noise I am somehow part of, dead-handed. The first song is pretty much over before I even realize we're playing.
(golf) Having very little wrist or hand action.
- 1984, George Peper, Golf's Supershots: How the Pros Played Them - How You Can Play Them, ISBN 0689706715:
  Then simply hit a dead-handed chip, with the hands, wrists and arms all swinging together as if in a solid block.
Having limp or weak hands.
- 2012, Bill Gaston, The World, ISBN 014318668X:
  My mother laughs from her grave, such are my sewing skills, but among these dead-handed men my wielding of a needle is nothing short of a miracle.

Possibly a confusion or blend of red-handed with dead to rights

dead-handed ‎(comparative more dead-handed, superlative most dead-handed)

Red-handed; having clear evidence of guilt.
- 2014, Emily Covington, Silver Follows, ISBN 1304959503:
  Charlie blushed as if he had been caught in the act of dead-handed idiocy.

dead-handed ‎(not comparable)

Red-handed, with clear evidence of guilt.
- 1978, ‎Sam Houston State University. Institute of Contemporary Corrections and the Behavioral Sciences. Interagency Workshop, Proceedings: Annual Interagency Workshop - Volume 6, page 83:
  Your man is caught dead-handed. He has the gun in his hand, or the marijuana in the car, or the narcotics in his suitcase...