stronghanded

Adjective

strong-handed (comparative more strong-handed, superlative most strong-handed)

1. Having hands that are strong; by extension, Strong, mighty
   • The paths were kept clean; the bits of board before the door were well swept, the children looked tidy, and the old grandmother, of whose fat, happy face, and clean-starched cap, I have yet a faint vision, seemed the belle ideal of a bold-hearted, strong-handed western woman, sinking into the...1846, Eliza Wood Farnham, Life in Prairie Land, →ISBN, page 210
2. Forceful or vigorous.
   • He not only punctuated his remarks with strong-handed gestures, coy smiles, dancing eyebrows, and guffaws, he seemed constantly to be folding or flinging about the loose ends of his maroon habit, seizing the limbs of panelists sitting on stage with him, waving to friends in the audience, and...1998, Dalai Lama, Robert Kiely, The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus, →ISBN
3. Resolute; unwavering and dauntless.
   • Resolute, strong-handed fellows they were, with Ethan Allen at their head; a native of Connecticut, but brought up among the Green Mountains.1856, Washington Irving, Life of George Washington - Volume 1, page 442
4. Firm; strict and harshly enforced.
   • The justification for this was that individual human beings were either fragile, fearful and slaves to themselves, or beastish and prone to the war of all against all (Bauman 2000: 20), which meant that humanity needed expert social architects to provide the perfect models of the common life and...2013, Marvin Oxenham, Higher Education in Liquid Modernity, →ISBN
5. (obsolete) Having many workers.
   • He took us on board purely out of a national feeling, for his ship was strong-handed without us, having thirty-two souls, all told, when he received us five.1844, James Fenimore Cooper, Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale
6. (US, obsolete) Wealthy.
   • If he be strong-handed, (has property,) he has the trees felled, about one foot from the earth, dragged into heaps, and made into an immense bonfire.1820, Eneas Mackenzie, An historical, topographical and descriptive view of the United States of America and of Upper and Lower Canada, page 392

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