English

Alternative forms

• dryhanded

Adjective

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

1. Having hands that are dry.
   • 2012, Patrick White, The Cockatoos: Shorter Novels and Stories, ISBN 1448129796:

     She identified the dry grasp and the finger joints (both the Simpsons were dry-handed, and in the early stages of arthritis, so Dr Simpson had diagnosed).

   • 2010, Natalie MacLean, Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass, ISBN 140882065X:

     Just after noon, a northerly wind suddenly sprant up. De Villaine and his crew were left to finish their harvest dry-headed and dry-handed.

   • 1933, The Journal of the Department of Agriculture of Victoria:

     In the experiment the dry-handed milkers washed their hands thoroughly in soap and water and dried them on a clean towel before starting.

2. Old and withered, with connotations of lacking sexual potency or appeal.
   • 2012, Jennifer Drew, Dear Mr. Right, ISBN 1460882210:

     She went from the arms of the football captain to the dry-handed grasp of Mr. Depopolus, who'd retired from the faculty when she was twelve years old.

   • 2012, Emily Perkins, The Forrests, ISBN 1408830019, page 242:

     As Dot walked down the steps towards the couple who frowned at the house, at the cypress trees, the camellia bushes and clay roof tiles, it became clear Ruth was ageing in reverse.At the funeral she had been strung-out, dry-handed, efficient and too thin, and she now looked younger, the layer of dewy plumpness in the skin of her face at odds with the cage bones above her unlikely breasts.

   • 2010, Howard V. Hendrix, Standing Wave: A Science Fiction Novel, ISBN 1434411710, page 80:

     Dry-handed big-eyed cryptographer Joria Trin Han, approaching intimacy as if it were a secret code to be cracked.

3. (archaic) Empty-handed.
   • 1979, Paul Cowan, The tribes of America, page 162:

     "But since they commenced to turning folks away, off dry-handed, giving them nothing while folks were getting hungry, well then the federal government fixed the welfare.

   • 1849, The Court and Times of James I, Containing a Series of Historical and Confidential Letters Volume 2:

     He went away on Wednesday last, and left this enclosed, which, I think, gives notice that the dry-handed Indians will remember themselves and you better than they have done.

   • 1994, The Fairs of Dundee - Issues 34-36, page 54:

     The General Fund Court also took exception in 1756 to the habit of 'some Trades' of booking 'dry-handed' masters without taking anything for the general fund. Dry-handed members were those who did not practise a craft; they included men of all sort of professions and craftsmen of any trade except the one they happened to be entering.

4. (obsolete) Unarmed; lacking special equipment for fighting.
   • 1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering:

     'And now,' she said,'ye maun hae arms:ye maunna gang on dry-handed; but use them not rashly.

   • 2010, Terence O. Ranger, Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893-1960, ISBN 1847010202:

     Ndebele boxers, however, fought dry handed. In the oral myth this difference between bare-hand and gloved boxing has come to stand for notions of 'Matabele' backwardness and 'Manyika' civilization.

   • 1865, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon:

     How long will ye whet spears with eloquence, Fight, and kill beasts dry-handed with sweet words? Cease, or talk still and slay thy boars at home.

5. (obsolete) Snobbish; concerned more with social standing than actual worth.
   • 1953, Herbert Leslie Stewart, The Dalhousie Review - Volume 33, page 156:

     During the ensuing period of growth and change Barrington began to consider itself the seat of learning and culture and to look down its nose somewhat at the outer villages, which in turn accused Barrington of becoming "dry-handed" and altogether too high-minded as it turned from fishing to business and the land

   • 1823, The progresses and public processions of Queen Elizabeth, page 577:

     For I hear their carriage well commended, especially the Duke of Nevers, saving that the Queen's musicians and other inferior officers complain, that he was very dry-handed.

   • 1828, John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, page 1096:

     £10,000 apiece; and, if all fall out right, the latter to come to our good friend [Secretary Winwood]'s share, who had rather have met with somebody else, and set me on work to win the dry-handed Knight (you know who I mean), who though he be ambitious enough, yet covetousness is the more predominant.