a.
1. Having weak hands; fig. not capable of effective exertion.
1539. Bible (Great), 2 Sam. xvii. 2. And I wyll come vpon hym, whyle he is werye and weake handed.
1868. Miss Yonge, Cameos, I. iv. 27. Crimes were committed which he had no power to restrain, and, weak-handed and bewildered, he seems to have acted in great matters [etc.].
2. = SHORT-HANDED a.2 2.
1817. J. Bradbury, Trav. Amer., 292. This mode is called girdling, and is only resorted to by those who, to use their own phrase, are ‘weak-handed.’
1836. Marryat, Pirate, xvi. We certainly may defend the schooner from the shore as well as on board; but we are weak-handed.
