a. [f. FREE a. + HAND sb. + -ED2.] Open-handed, generous, liberal.
a. 1656. Bp. Hall, Soliloquies, 75. It tells a man … that he is freehanded and munificent, when he sticks not to rob beggars.
1832. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. V. (1863), 325. Found in the free-handed and open-hearted farmer and his charming little girl her only comfort.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., III. 717. The cry was that of a bold, jolly, freehanded English gentleman, of whom the worst that could be said was that he liked wine and women, was to be shot in order to gratify the spite of the Dutch.
