single-handed
single-handed adjective: without help from others; unassisted. Also the simple past and past participle of single-hand.
Adjective
single-handed (not comparable)
- Without help from others; unassisted.
- It worked through from Swindon with a test train of 16 coaches and the new W.R. dynamometer car, the whole totalling 571 tons; this is one of the heaviest trains ever worked by a single-handed locomotive over the South Devon banks—in fact, it was competently restarted from a test stop on Dainton...1962 April, “Motive power miscellany: Western Region”, in Modern Railways, page 280
- Using only one hand.
- Designed for only one hand.
Adverb
single-handed (not comparable)
- In a single-handed manner.
- I've been holding my family together single-handed.
- "Got those [sc. scars] with a broken bottle, arresting two toughs at once," he said, replacing his cap. "Run them in single-handed and had a set-to in the cell with them on top of it."1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 21
- Synonyms:
- by oneself
Also used as
single-handed is also the simple past and past participle of single-hand.
Synonyms of single-handed
Forms of single-handed
| alternative form | single handed |
|---|---|
| alternative form | singlehanded |
Words formed from single-handed
Questions about single-handed
- What does single-handed mean?
- Single-handed means without help from others; unassisted.
- What part of speech is single-handed?
- Single-handed can be an adjective or an adverb.
Words near single-handed in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: single-handed (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “single-handed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/single-handed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.