Word.ws English Dictionary

hand-wavy

hand-wavy is the alternative spelling of handwavy.

Meaning of handwavy

Adjective

handwavy (comparative more handwavy, superlative most handwavy)

  1. (informal, proof, or explanation) Missing important details or logical steps, perhaps instead appealing to laymen, common sense, tradition, intuition, or examples.

Forms of hand-wavy

comparativemore hand-wavy
superlativemost hand-wavy

Questions about hand-wavy

What is hand-wavy the alternative spelling of?
Hand-wavy is the alternative spelling of handwavy.

Words near hand-wavy in the dictionary

  1. hand-washing
  2. hand-wave
  3. hand-waved
  4. hand-waves
  5. hand-waving
  6. hand-wavy
  7. hand-winged
  8. hand-work
  9. hand-worked
  10. hand-works
  11. hand-woven

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hand-wavy (page history and authors); handwavy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “hand-wavy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hand-wavy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.