well-handed

Adjective

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

1. Skillful at manual tasks.
   • Thomas DeGrey outlined the basic surgical skills as including the ability to: 'Cauterize well, to let blood well, to be light and well-handed, bold and hardy in dressing of a Horse well'.2013, Louise Hill Curth, 'A plaine and easie waie to remedie a horse':, →ISBN, page 161
   • He has a well-handed wife called Mareon that will bake and brew for seafarers and horsemen.2014, George Mackay Brown, The Masked Fisherman and Other Stories, →ISBN
2. Skillfully put together.
   • But the interest of a well-handed argument is, perhaps, as strong an influence as any which can be exerted to control attention.1889, The Churchman - Volume 60, page 197
   • A whole family mythology is gradually set up, as different people's stories begin to intertwine. It is a discontinuous narrative that is well-handed on the whole, with enough common ground between the narratives to hold the book together, although I found the middle parts of James Cleaver's family...1990, Southerly: A Review of Australian Literature
3. Having well-formed hands (and arms)
   • May the divine Savitri, the well-handed, well-fingered, and well-armed, clear thee by his might!'2014, Julius Eggeling, The Satapatha Brahmana, Part III, page 64
   • A Bairn was born reckoned to be a Man-Child; but, from the Waste up, was two fair Persons, with all Members and Portraitures pertaining to two Bodies, to wit, Two Heads, well-eyed, well-eared, and well-handed.1728, Robert Lindsay, The History of Scotland: From 21 February, 1436. to March 1563
4. Having plenty of support.
   • ... but it also teaches you the value of organization, it shows you the real meaning and import of a well-handed force that makes for good, it sharpens your wit in debate, it loosens your tongue in the right way and in proper channels, and it instills into you a knowledge of parliamentary law and...1903, The Car Worker - Volume 1, page 12
   • I learned from then on never to go to the pictures alone. It was far better to be well-handed, with some of my friends, just in case any trouble broke out.2011, Colin MacFarlane, The Real Gorbals Story, →ISBN
5. (Jamaica, obsolete) Well-supplied with slaves.
   • On all estates, the boiling goes on night and day, except sunday. But well-handed estates have three spells, and intermissions accordingly.1789, Great Britain Parliament House of Commons, Abridgment of the Minutes of the Evidence Taken Before a Committee of the Whole House, to whom it was referred to consider the Slave-Trade, page 115
   • Here an estate, which would plant 103 acres of canes, would, I presume, to be well-handed, have 250 negroes, young and old, which may all, except infants and the very aged, be said to contribulte less or more to the cultivation of the cane; but deducting 100 for infants' nurses, and other...1817, Hezekiah Niles, William Ogden Niles, Jeremiah Hughes, Niles' National Register, Volume 11, page 7