English

Alternative forms

• close-handedness

Noun

closehandedness ‎(uncountable)

1. Parsimony.
   • 1978, Richard Slotkin & ‎James K. Folsom, So Dreadfull a Judgment: Puritan Responses to King Philip's War, 1676-1677, ISBN 0819560588, page 178:

     I have (saith he) long been of that mind that N. E. is guilty of great unthankfulness for the Gospel, & strait-heartedness, & closehandedness toward the Ministers.

2. Secrecy.
   • 2013, Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Writings, XI: Stages on Life's Way, ISBN 1400846986, page 343:

     This cannot disturb me without making me guilty of an inconsistency, and this cannot be, since I do not wish to confide in anyone lest I myself make a mistake and think I should go out and proclaim this closehandedness instead of staying close to myself.

3. Proximity.
   • 1975, Margaret Gibson & ‎Richard McCann, Landscape and distance: contemporary poets from Virginia, page 35:

     The warm palm on his mind, in she goes, in where he is, to poultice down— not fast enough, faster they must till again from dysfunction, night inklings, to love himself he has a mind, she from untoward closehandedness, they go down to the bottom, the scolded skin, there concentrate.