Left-handed

a. (Stress variable.) [-ED².]

  1.  Having the left hand more serviceable than the right; using the left hand by preference.

a. 1485.  [see LEFT HAND 3].

c. 1530.  L. Cox, Rhet. (1899), 62. The yonge man after warde was named Sceuola, whiche is as muche to say in Englyssh as lefte handed.

a. 1627.  Middleton & Rowley, Changeling, III. iii. 121. I’ll go up and play left-handed Orlando amongst the madmen.

1709.  Steele, Tatler, No. 59, ¶ 5. They are all Left-handed, and have always been very expert at Single Rapier.

1892.  Pall Mall Gaz., 4 July, 6/1. Perhaps some physiologist can explain … why a left-handed bowler is nearly always a right-handed bat.

  2.  fig. † a. Crippled, defective. Obs. b. Awkward; clumsy, inapt. (Cf. L. lævus, F. gauche.)

  † c.  Characterized by underhand dealings. Obs.

  a.  1629.  Leather, 10. How many … Manuall Trades must be left-handed and go lame, if Leather … bee taken from them.

1636.  J. Taylor (Water P.), Catal. Tavernes (1877), 52. Chertsey … there is a decayed left-handed bridge over the river: I wish it mended.

  b.  1613.  Beaum. & Fl., Captain, III. v. That thou mayst know him perfectly, hee’s one Of a left-handed making, a lanck thing.

1655.  Fuller, Hist. Camb. (1840), 110. A good artist is left-handed to no profession.

1806–7.  J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), xviii. 197. A minor critic … puzzling himself to death with twenty left-handed conjectures about nothing.

1863.  A. Blomfield, Mem. Bp. Blomfield, I. vii. 203. Disproving the assertion of Fuller … that spiritual men are generally left-handed in secular affairs.

  c.  1694.  Motteux, Rabelais, V. v. (1737), 19. Ill-natur’d Left-handed Godlings and Vejoves.

1707.  J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 328. ’Tis not safe trusting a Left Handed Man with Money.

  3.  Ambiguous, doubtful, questionable. † In medical language: Spurious.

1612.  Sir G. Paule, Life Abp. Whitgift, 44. [They] are close hypocrites and walke in a left-handed policie.

1625.  Gill, Sacr. Philos., I. 39. For the avoyding of some left-handed opinions concerning Him.

1650.  B., Discolliminium, 17. They are dextrously pragmatick in all Left-handed worke.

1735–8.  Bolingbroke, On Parties, 2. There is need of that left-handed Wisdom.

1775.  Adair, Amer. Ind., 452. Lest necessity should compel her … to pay … dear for her left-handed wisdom.

1804.  Med. & Phys. Jrnl., XII. 63. The spurious left-handed inflammation of erysipelas.

1807–8.  W. Irving, Salmag., xiii. (1860), 307. We are indebted to the world for little else than left-handed favors.

1809.  Malkin, Gil Blas, IV. vii. § 18. I gave a left-handed blessing to Euphrasia.

1824–9.  Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1846, II. 228. Thou hast some left-handed business in the neighbourhood, no doubt.

1881.  Saintsbury, Dryden, i. 6. To diminish the force of this very left-handed compliment.

1892.  Nation (N.Y.), 22 Dec., 481/3. Dr. White … had to put up with a left-handed Scotch ordination to his bishopric.

1899.  Law Jrnl., 11 Nov., 577/2. If this exemption … was designed as a concession to farmers, it is a curiously left-handed one.

  4.  Ill-omened, inauspicious, sinister. Of a deity: Unpropitious. (Cf. L. lævus.) ? Obs.

1609.  B. Jonson, Sil. Wom., III. ii. That would not be put off with left-handed cries.

1650.  T. B[ayley], Worcester’s Apoph., Ep. Ded. 2. The (Left-handed) stroaks of fortune, which have lately fallen so heavily upon your Illustrious Family.

1678.  Dryden & Lee, Œdipus, I. i. D.’s Wks. 1883, VI. 151. And while Jove holds us out the bowl of joy … ’tis dashed with gall By some left-handed god.

1809.  Malkin, Gil Blas, VI. i. ¶ 9. Was not that a left-handed dream for him, master secretary?

  5.  Of a marriage: Literally, one in which the bridegroom gives the bride his left hand instead of his right (as was the custom at morganatic weddings in Germany); hence, morganatic. Said also of the parties so married, and of the issue of the marriage.

  Occasionally applied to fictitious or illegal marriages, or to unions formed without marriage, and to their offspring.

a. 1642.  Killigrew, Parson’s Wed., I. i. Do you not know he’s married according to the Rogue’s Liturgy? a Left-handed Bridegroom.

1653–4.  Whitelocke, Jrnl. Swed. Emb. (1772), I. 280. He marryed the king of Denmarke’s daughter by a left-handed wife (as they are there called).

1760.  Foote, Minor, I. Wks. 1799, I. 235. A left-handed marriage, in the language of the newspapers.

1788.  H. Walpole, Remin., i. 19. The children of a left-handed alliance are not entitled to inherit.

1835.  Southey, Cowper’s Life & Wks., I. 102. His mistress, whom he [Churchill] considered now as his left-handed wife, united to him by moral ties.

1839.  Lett. fr. Madras, xxv. (1843), 274. The half-caste young left-handed ladies look down upon the poor little honestly-born Europeans.

1861.  Thackeray, Four Georges, i. [They] contracted left-handed marriages after the princely fashion of those days.

1885.  Manch. Exam., 21 Jan., 5/2. Caroline Bauer … represents herself … as having … become the left-handed wife of the late King of Belgium.

  fig.  1865.  Lowell, Scotch the Snake, Prose Wks. 1890, V. 260. Shall we succeed better in trying a second left-handed marriage between democracy and another form of aristocracy?

  6.  in various uses. a. Of an implement: Adapted to the left hand or arm, or for use by a left-handed person. b. Placed on the left hand. c. Of a blow: Delivered with the left hand.

a. 1653.  G. Daniel, Idyll, v. 42. Rather then want a Target, Perkins Tents Are Search’t vp, for Left-handed Implements.

1752.  Hume, Ess. & Treat. (1817), II. 450. It is drawn only … from the left-handed vessel.

1814.  Sporting Mag., XLIV. 240. Hall met him with a left-handed facer.

1825.  Knapp & Baldw., Newgate Cal., IV. 335/1. A left-handed gun, as the lock was at this side.

  7.  In scientific and technical use: Characterized by a direction or rotation to the left; producing such a rotation in the plane of a polarized ray. (Cf. LÆVO-.)

1812–6.  J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, I. 74. As the tool meets the wood, so it cuts a left-handed screw.

1825.  J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 143. If the stone revolves the other way … the mill is termed a left-handed one.

1831.  Brewster, Optics, xxvi. 218. Hence, in reference to this quality, quartz may be divided into right-handed and left-handed quartz.

1851–6.  Woodward, Mollusca, 46. Left-handed, or reversed varieties of spiral shells have been met with.

c. 1865.  J. Wylde, in Orr’s Circ. Sci., I. 84/2. If … these colours succeed each other in any body when the analyser is turned towards the left hand, then such is said to have a left-handed polarisation.

1884.  F. J. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 141. [A] left-handed movement. Ibid., 227. [A] Left Handed Fusee.

  Hence Lefthandedly adv., Lefthandedness.

a. 1631.  Donne, Poems (1633), 77.

1854.  Scoffern, in Orr’s Circ. Sci., Chem., 82. The amount of right-handedness or left-handedness displayed by the solution.

1872.  O. W. Holmes, Poet Breakf.-t., viii. (1885), 203. The subject of what we may call moral left-handedness.

1882.  Athenæum, 30 Dec., 904/3. A representation of the Apollo Belvedere … holding out … left-handedly enough, a problematical scaring ægis.