Word.ws English Dictionary

one-handed

one-handed adjective: having only one hand.

Adjective

one-handed (not comparable)

  1. Having only one hand.
    • And who said the one-handed guy couldn't be self-sufficient? Certainly not his physical therapist, Gus, who led him to believe he'd be as good as new with a spaceage prosthesis and a crapload of physical and occupational therapy.2012, Carrie Weaver, Temporary Nanny, →ISBN
    • Note that we can represent any cyclic event with a one-handed clock.1995, Alfred L. Horowitz, MRI Physics for Radiologists, →ISBN
  2. Performed using only one hand.
    • A one-handed save by Wojciech Szczesny prevented Darren Pratley giving Bolton an early lead and Arsenal looked short of ideas in a goalless first half.2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport
    • If either movement or speed around the court is a weakness, the one-handed backhand may be the best choice because of the extra reach.2012, Joey Rive, Scott C. Williams, Tennis Skills & Drills, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    one-handed tourniquet
  3. Designed for use with one hand
    • The hoplites were pezetæri, the sarissa-armed, and hypaspists, a more select body, aimed with one-handed pike, sword and shield.2012, Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Alexander: A History of the Origin and Growth of the Art of War from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Ipsus, B.C. 301, With a Detailed Account of the Campaigns of the...
    1. (specifically) Pornographic in nature.
      • ... Boys sexual content mostly consists of a series of violent and less than titillating homosexual assaults. Word of mouth among the one-handed readership would not have been good.2007, Neil Pearson, Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press, Liverpool University Press, →ISBN, page 401
      • “If it failed for me, it was only as smut; the book, at least in large black and white photocopy form, was not a one-handed read.2012, Todd A. Comer, Joseph Michael Sommers, Sexual Ideology in the Works of Alan Moore: Critical Essays on the Graphic Novels, McFarland, →ISBN, page 146
  4. That uses one hand.
    • The one-handed shooter, the target man who fires the national match course, turns about 45 degrees from the target, separates his feet about the same distance, fully extends his hand, locking the elbow, and with head and body erect looks over the sights.2015, William Hamilton, My Sixty Years on the Plains: Trapping, Trading, and Indian Fighting, →ISBN
  5. Involving the actions of only one person.
    • I don't think she knew what a relief that was, because I would have been poor help for Ralph as a one-handed crew.2011, Ralph & Phyllis Nansen, Stone Boat Odyssey, →ISBN, page 251
    • Holding intercourse with Sir William at this date partook a good deal of the nature of a one-handed conversation, and the one-handedness seemed to increase when the only share of the host, in the post-prandial conviviality, consisted in passing the decanters, which Sir William was scrupulous to do.1884, Good Words Volume 25, page 67
  6. Chiral, having an asymmetric structural orientation.
    • Because of the m-phenylene linkage along the polymer main chain, the inherent propensity to generate foldamers has been explored in several ways, and the induction of one-handed polymer helicity been achieved.2010 November, PD Barata, AI Costa, LFV Ferreira, JV Prata, “Synthesis, structure, and optical properties of an alternating calix [4] arene-based meta-linked phenylene ethynylene copolymer”, in...

Adverb

one-handed (not comparable)

  1. Using only one hand; one-handedly.
    • She waved to us and lost her balance; riding a bicycle one-handed is tricky.
    • She fanned the fire one-handed, cooked, swept the yard, pulled weeds out of the tomato beds, washed longyis and towels, and even developed a technique to wring them out one-handed—all because she did not want to put her son down.2014, Jan-Philipp Sendker, A Well-Tempered Heart, →ISBN
    1. (euphemistic, humorous, often) While masturbating.
      • The kind of story that you just know was written one-handed
  2. (figuratively) Very easily, without effort.
    • He's a terrible snooker player. I could beat him one-handed!
    • That's when Brandon noticed the five kids were laughing at him. "Are you the best player in Springton?" asked one. "Hah! We could beat you one-handed!" shouted another. "We could beat you blindfolded!" said a third.2000, Rigby, The runaway ball, →ISBN, page 5

one-handed meaning in Tamil

one-handed in Tamil

ஒரே கையுடைய, ஒரே கையால் செய்யப்பட்ட

Examples of one-handed in a sentence

  • Felicity prepares him meals he can eat one-handed, and when they have a roast, she cuts up the meat into bite-sized portions as she once did for the children.2012, Linda MacDonald, A Meeting of a Different Kind, →ISBN:
  • Doing it one-handed was hard but not insurmountable.2010, Tom Clancy, Patriot Games:
  • As rough as you look 'round the edges this morning, I could take you one-handed.2000, Nora Roberts, Heart of the Sea: The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy #3, →ISBN, page 93:

Synonyms of one-handed

  • one-handed tourniquet

Forms of one-handed

alternative formonehanded

Origin of one-handed

From Middle English on-handed, variant of Middle English on-hande, onehand, from Old English ānhende (“one-handed”). By surface analysis, one + handed. Compare German einhändig (“one-handed”), Swedish enhänt, en-handad (“one-handed”), Icelandic einn-hönd (“one-handed”).

Words formed from one-handed

Questions about one-handed

What does one-handed mean?
One-handed means having only one hand.
What is one-handed in Tamil?
One-handed in Tamil is ஒரே கையுடைய, ஒரே கையால் செய்யப்பட்ட. See One-handed meaning in Tamil.
How do you use one-handed in a sentence?
Felicity prepares him meals he can eat one-handed, and when they have a roast, she cuts up the meat into bite-sized portions as she once did for the children.
What part of speech is one-handed?
One-handed can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near one-handed in the dictionary

  1. one-gallus
  2. one-gallused
  3. one-half
  4. one-half crosswise
  5. one-half lengthwise
  6. one-handed
  7. one-handedly
  8. one-handedness
  9. one-hander
  10. one-handers
  11. one-hit

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one-handed (page history and authors); one-handed (Tamil Wiktionary) (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: “one-handed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/one-handed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.