ambidextry

Noun

ambidextry (uncountable)

1. Ambidextrousness.
   • On pages 335-345 he pays his respects to the movement for the education of children in “ambidextry,” which has some vogue both in Europe and in America. He regards it as "false and useless," and as possessing "no intellectual advantages at all." The best thing to do is to "let the lefthanded die...1912, Current Anthropological Literature, page 33
   • Righthandedness for one thing, lefthandedness for another, occurs, within the group of righthanded and lefthanded, and even ambidextry also.1963, Journal of American Folklore - Volumes 23-24, page 41
2. Two-sidedness; embracing or engaging in both sides of a dichotomy.
   • John, however, howsoever inconsistent in his farming, was never so with respect to his character; having always and avowedly piqued himself more on his knack at ambidextry, than congruity or discernment; and frequently, while in times of scarcity and dearth, he with one hand supplicates in his...1814, Bath and West and Southern Counties Society, Journal - Volume 13, page 287
   • The anonymous Song on the Venality of the Judges, which dates from this period, regarded those sitting in judgment as 'seduced from justice' by partiality and bribes and those pleading in court as guilty of 'ambidextry', i.e. of accepting gifts not just from their own client, but from both parties...2014, Stephen Henry Rigby, Alastair J. Minnis, Historians on Chaucer, page 207