close-handedness

Noun

closehandedness (uncountable)

1. Parsimony.
   • I have (saith he) long been of that mind that N. E. is guilty of great unthankfulness for the Gospel, & strait-heartedness, & closehandedness toward the Ministers.1978, Richard Slotkin, James K. Folsom, So Dreadfull a Judgment: Puritan Responses to King Philip's War, 1676-1677, →ISBN, page 178
2. Secrecy.
   • This cannot disturb me without making me guilty of an inconsistency, and this cannot be, since I do not wish to confide in anyone lest I myself make a mistake and think I should go out and proclaim this closehandedness instead of staying close to myself.2013, Søren Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard's Writings, XI: Stages on Life's Way, →ISBN, page 343
3. Proximity.
   • The warm palm on his mind, in she goes, in where he is, to poultice down— not fast enough, faster they must till again from dysfunction, night inklings, to love himself he has a mind, she from untoward closehandedness, they go down to the bottom, the scolded skin, there concentrate.1975, Margaret Gibson, Richard McCann, Landscape and distance: contemporary poets from Virginia, page 35