English

Adjective

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

1. Having hands that are large.
   • 2014, Diana Marcellas, Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea, ISBN 1497631335:

     (Much luck Natalie will have, with those freckles), Margot thought, her spite laced with a slipping envy, knowing herself too squat and large-handed to compete with the prettier women like Natalie, freckles or not.

   • 1870, Auguste Demmin, Weapons of War, ISBN 5875563532, page 153:

     Burgundian sword in iron, about 3 feet 3 inches in length, imluding the. haft, which is very long, and proves that it must have been used by a robust and large-handed race.

   • 1858, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Selected Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.:

     He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed and thin-muscled -- you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed creatures, that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not quite dead enough to bury.

2. Spending or giving in large quantities; generous or spendthrift.
   • 1849 July, Comte De Tocqueville, “Histoire Philosophique du Règne de Louis XV”, in Edinburgh Review, Or Critical Journal, page 50:

     At the instigation of Colbert, whose rigid honesty was scandalised by Fouquet's large-handed and prodigal corruption, Louis determined to curb these soaring aspirations.

   • 1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations:

     Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to patronize me.

   • 1882, Henry James Coleridge, The Ministry of Saint John Baptist:

     God loves a cheerful large-handed giver, and He is Himself the model and pattern of magnificence in giving.

3. Greedy, rapacious.
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens:

     Bound servants, steal! Large-handed robbers your grave masters are, And pill by law!

   • 1921, Emerson Hough, The Passing of the Frontier: A Chronicle of the Old West, page 34:

     It was the beginning of a feudalism of the range, a barony rude enough, but a glorious one, albeit it began, like all feudalism, in large-handed theft and generous murdering.

   • 2014, Olga Goriunova, Fun and Software: Exploring Pleasure, Paradox and Pain in Computing, ISBN 1623568870, page 202:

     The critical players are not the consumers of Monopoly (enjoying the fun of playing large-handed capitalists), but the Georgists and Quakers making the game.