one-handedness

Noun

one-handedness (uncountable)

1. The quality of having a dominant hand; left-handedness or right-handedness.
   • Again some persons are too right-handed (I question, indeed, whether one-handedness, whether right or left be chiefly employed, does not in all cases involve a loss of power).1875, Richard Anthony Proctor, Science Byways, page 326
2. Chirality
   • It must be noted that the stimulating hypotheses of Cairns-Smith (1982) emphasizing the role of clays in the origin of life do not account for the crucial one-handedness of biopolymers required to ensure the survival of self-replicating organic systems.2011, Faïza Bergaya, B.K.G. Theng, G. Lagaly, Handbook of Clay Science, →ISBN, page 383
3. The possession of only one hand or the ability to use only one hand; the loss of the use of one hand.
   • The young man had married a woman who had only one hand, and it was on the fact of her one-handedness that my thought was focused.2011, Hanna Zacks, More Than Meets the Eye: A Journey Into the Mysteries of Psychic Phenomena, →ISBN, page 48
   • Phenomenologically speaking, such differences are immediately incorportated into the lived body by being endowed with meaning in the context of one's everyday activities. Thus one-handedness can be lived, for example, as difficulty with pouring water into a jug, blindness--as exclusion from social...2014, Teodor Mladenov, Critical Theory and Disability: A Phenomenological Approach, →ISBN
4. The state of choosing to use only one hand.
   • A later generation of bebop pianists would often be accused of one-handedness; their right hands flew along with melodies and improvisations, while their "weak" left hands just plonked chords.2009, Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, →ISBN
   • One-handedness is essential for training to great skill in balanced action with any sensible design of weapon, as in fencing, but more especially when fighting from behind a tree or when being prepared to run if overcome (except possibly with bows and arrows where the defense handedness is...2001, Fred Howard, Human Creatures, →ISBN, page 121
5. The quality of being designed for only one hand.
   • As can be witnessed in a performance of that work by Fleisher, it is indeed a dazzling display piece in which, if it is only heard and not seen, its one-handedness might evade listeners' notice.2015, Nancy J. Hirschmann, Beth Linker, Civil Disabilities: Citizenship, Membership, and Belonging, →ISBN, page 132
6. A state in which only one person is active
   • 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
7. (figuratively) Weakness, limitation
   • Mr. Herbert makes his moan over the awful one-handedness and one-leggedness of our rich classes, who are smitten with the universal incapacity to help theniselves.1892, The Review of Reviews - Volume 4, page 466