English

Adjective

openhanded ‎(comparative more openhanded, superlative most openhanded)

1. Alternative form of open-handed
   1. Done with an open hand.
      • 2008, Richard J. Powell, Cutting a Figure: Fashioning Black Portraiture, ISBN 0226677273, page 52:

        In the painting, the enslaved and (as conjectured by historian Steven Weisenburger) sexually abused Margaret Garner betrays her liaison with her owner Archibald Gaines with an exposed, openhanded gesture toward him.

      • 2015, Alexis Hall, Shackles: A Prosperity Story, ISBN 1626492263, page 45:

        And when I did not answer, f-for my mouth was t-too dry for speech, he asked again, and I stammered out some nonsense, and then he struck me, openhanded, as though I was not a man.

   2. Generous.
      • 1995, Robert L. Paarlberg, Leadership Abroad Begins at Home: U.S. Foreign Economic Policy After the Cold War, ISBN 0815791615:

        In the economic realm, because of its temporary preponderance, the United States could afford to be openhanded.

      • 1888, John Addington Symonds, Renaissance in Italy - Volume 5, page 400:

        Yet he understood nothing of real magnanimity; his charity was part of an openhanded recklessness, which made him fling the goods of fortune to the wind as soon as gained—part of the character of grand seigneur he aspired to assume.

   3. Frank and tolerant.
      • 1989, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ‎Hamid Dabashi, & ‎Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr, Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, ISBN 0887068448, page 82:

        Let selling be an openhanded selling, with justly balanced scales and price which do not prejudice either party, buyer or seller.

      • 2006, Hal Brunson, Lesbos, Narcissus, and Paulos, ISBN 0595405967, page ix:

        Arm-in-arm with religious liberals stand a legion of openhanded political liberals, humanists, and, of course, homosexuals themselves, all of whom passionately embrace homosexuality as a morally and constitutionally justified “alternative lifestyle."

      • 2014, Sister Simone Campbell, A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community, ISBN 0062273566:

        The challengeof maintaining this awareness is to sit openhanded to receive all that comes.

   4. Loose and full.
      • 1891, The Alpine Journal - Volume 15, page 7:

        We believe the majority of Swiss guides use the Swiss loop at the end of the rope, and the openhanded loop in the middle.

      • 2012, T.D. Jakes, Let it Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven, ISBN 1471101088:

        The iconic flower of love could be found in every state of its life cycle -- tender green shoots with tiny green thorns that looked like baby teeth, buds determined not to reveal themselves any sooner than necessary, fresh blooms that resemble sleepers just opening their eyes, and full blosssoms with the openhanded beauty of an old person's wrinkled face.

Adverb

openhanded ‎(comparative more openhanded, superlative most openhanded)

1. Alternative form of open-handed
   1. With an open hand or hands.
      • 2014, Benjamin Whitmer, Cry Father, ISBN 1476734372, page 278:

        Patterson smacks her openhanded on the side of the head.

   2. Generously.
      • 1856, The Living Age - Volume 48, page 502:

        He leaves the mild Alexander to continue, under the pressure of fraternal competition, the hereditary policy of Peter and Catherine; to raise levy after levy, loan after loan, ineffectually, while loans of any amount required are given openhanded by the people of France and England to their governments and the seas of the world remain open to the commerce of the Allies.

Verb

openhanded

1. simple past tense and past participle of openhand