Word.ws English Dictionary

left-handed compliment

left-handed compliment noun: a complimentary remark which is ambiguous or ineptly worded, so that it may be interpreted as having an unflattering or dismissive sense.

Noun

left-handed compliment (plural left-handed compliments)

  1. (idiomatic) A complimentary remark which is ambiguous or ineptly worded, so that it may be interpreted as having an unflattering or dismissive sense.
    • "We have sat through the whole of dinner and not once mentioned politics."
      "You made us forget them," Tallente murmured.
      "A left-handed compliment," Jane laughed.1921, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 16, in Nobody's Man
    • In a somewhat left-handed compliment, UN Secretary-General U Thant described Russia's new bosses as "competent and unpretentious."1964 October 30, “The Morning After”, in Time, retrieved 07 Oct 2013

Synonyms of left-handed compliment

Forms of left-handed compliment

pluralleft-handed compliments

Questions about left-handed compliment

What does left-handed compliment mean?
Left-handed compliment means a complimentary remark which is ambiguous or ineptly worded, so that it may be interpreted as having an unflattering or dismissive sense.
What part of speech is left-handed compliment?
Left-handed compliment is a noun.
What is the plural of left-handed compliment?
The plural of left-handed compliment is left-handed compliments.

Words near left-handed compliment in the dictionary

  1. left-handed
  2. left-handed anti-neutrino
  3. left-handed anti-neutrinos
  4. left-handed cigarette
  5. left-handed cigarettes
  6. left-handed compliment
  7. left-handed compliments
  8. left-handed monkey wrench
  9. left-handed monkey wrenches
  10. left-handed path
  11. left-handed smoke shifter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: left-handed compliment (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-left-handed compliment.ogg.

Cite this entry: “left-handed compliment.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/left-handed_compliment. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.