dry-handed

Adjective

dry-handed (comparative more dry-handed, superlative most dry-handed)

1. Having hands that are dry.
   • She identified the dry grasp and the finger joints (both the Simpsons were dry-handed, and in the early stages of arthritis, so Dr Simpson had diagnosed).2012, Patrick White, The Cockatoos: Shorter Novels and Stories, →ISBN
   • Just after noon, a northerly wind suddenly sprant up. De Villaine and his crew were left to finish their harvest dry-headed and dry-handed.2010, Natalie MacLean, Red, White, and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass, →ISBN
2. Old and withered, with connotations of lacking sexual potency or appeal.
   • She went from the arms of the football captain to the dry-handed grasp of Mr. Depopolus, who'd retired from the faculty when she was twelve years old.2012, Jennifer Drew, Dear Mr. Right, →ISBN
   • As Dot walked down the steps towards the couple who frowned at the house, at the cypress trees, the camellia bushes and clay roof tiles, it became clear Ruth was ageing in reverse.At the funeral she had been strung-out, dry-handed, efficient and too thin, and she now looked younger, the layer of...2012, Emily Perkins, The Forrests, →ISBN, page 242
3. (archaic) Empty-handed.
   • "But since they commenced to turning folks away, off dry-handed, giving them nothing while folks were getting hungry, well then the federal government fixed the welfare.1979, Paul Cowan, The tribes of America, page 162
   • He went away on Wednesday last, and left this enclosed, which, I think, gives notice that the dry-handed Indians will remember themselves and you better than they have done.1849, The Court and Times of James I, Containing a Series of Historical and Confidential Letters Volume 2
4. (obsolete) Unarmed; lacking special equipment for fighting.
   • 'And now,' she said,'ye maun hae arms:ye maunna gang on dry-handed; but use them not rashly.1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering
   • Ndebele boxers, however, fought dry handed. In the oral myth this difference between bare-hand and gloved boxing has come to stand for notions of 'Matabele' backwardness and 'Manyika' civilization.2010, Terence O. Ranger, Bulawayo Burning: The Social History of a Southern African City, 1893-1960, →ISBN
5. (obsolete) Snobbish; concerned more with social standing than actual worth.
   • During the ensuing period of growth and change Barrington began to consider itself the seat of learning and culture and to look down its nose somewhat at the outer villages, which in turn accused Barrington of becoming "dry-handed" and altogether too high-minded as it turned from fishing to...1953, Herbert Leslie Stewart, The Dalhousie Review - Volume 33, page 156
   • For I hear their carriage well commended, especially the Duke of Nevers, saving that the Queen's musicians and other inferior officers complain, that he was very dry-handed.1823, The progresses and public processions of Queen Elizabeth, page 577