lighter-handed

Adjective

light-handed (comparative lighter-handed or more light-handed, superlative lightest-handed or most light-handed)

1. Gentle; benign and with minimal intervention.
   • Does it reflect your position toward the other agencies that, in the words of your Deputy, this program should be as lighthanded as possible?1979, United States Congress House Committee on Government Operations. Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Subcommittee, Energy Conservation Within the Federal Government: The Department of...
2. Sparing; applying only slight pressure or minimal amounts.
   • The shadow was now also applied to the lower lash line, but still very light-handed.2010, Riku Campo, Best in Beauty, →ISBN, page 257
3. Delicate and skilled; nimble and dextrous
   • Winterbourne constantly attended for news from the sick-room, which reached him, however, but with worrying indirectness, though he once had speech, for a moment, of the poor girl's physician and once saw Mrs Miller, who, sharply alarmed, struck him as thereby more happily inspired than he could...1877, Henry James, Four Meetings
4. Light-hearted; fun and witty or easygoing.
   • We make several light-handed or joking references to my change.1981-1982, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure
5. Flippant; lacking seriousness.
   • Philip Penna, of Indiana, a veteran of many labor controversies, roundly scored the United Mine Workers for their light-handed treatment of their contracts.1921, Coal Age - Volume 20, page 669
6. Not having a full complement of workers.
   • “We will hold on to the last, while he must begin to take in soon, or the squall will come upon him too fast for a light-handed vessel.”1836, James Fenimore Cooper, The Water Witch

See all 11 meanings of light-handed