back-handed

Adjective

backhanded (comparative more backhanded, superlative most backhanded)

1. With the back of the hand.
   • The trader roars like an animal whose paw has been caught in a trap, but he hauls back his other arm and lands a backhanded blow to the side of her head that knocks her sideways onto the babushki bench.2010, Byrna Barclay, Jack Hodgins, The Forest Horses: A Novel, →ISBN, page 178
2. Involving a backward flip of the hand.
   • Some casters can do a cross-body or backhanded cast quite effectively.2014, Rick Kustich, Advanced Fly Fishing for Great Lakes Steelhead, →ISBN, page 42
3. Insincere, sarcastic, ironic, or self-contradictory.
   • But modesty here is out of the question, and is often the most beggarly and back-handed friend that merit can have in its pay.1817 [1756], William Godwin, Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century in England, volume 2, London: Archibald Constable and Co., page 180
4. Indirect.
   • Only in grade 5 is he mentioned and in this backhanded way: "George Darwin, son of the famous English scientist, Charles Darwin." . . . But for what is Charles Darwin famous? You won't find it in the California elementary science textbooks.1988, Thomas F. Glick, The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, →ISBN, page 479
5. Backwards, turned around.
   • No one ever believed that Leif meant any harm, but all the luck he brought was backhanded.2000, Margaret Elphinstone, The Sea Road, →ISBN, page 98
6. inclining to the left
   • In this particular instance the writing begins backhanded, and there is a reversion to the right-handed type, -- an unconscious reversion, which makes me think that is the natural method of writing;1907, The Official Report of the Trial of Charles Louis Tucker for the Murder of Mabel Page: In the Superior Court of Massachusetts, Volume 1

See all 9 meanings of backhanded