closehanded

comparative more closehanded · superlative most closehanded · alternative close-handed

1. Covetous; penurious; stingy

   The most famous of the roods was that of Boxley in Kent, which used to smile and bow, or frown and shake its head, as its worshippers were generous or closehanded.

   2013, James A. Froude, The Essential James A. Froude Collection, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Once he got to Main Street, the street lamps puddled pale gold circles directly beneath their poles, closehanded as a string of misers, but Mason avoided even the edges of their light.

   2015, Fran Stewart, chapter 8, in A Wee Murder in My Shop, →ISBN

   In his buildings he was magnificent ; in his reward closehanded : so that his liberality extended rather to what regarded himself, and his own memory, than to the rewarding of merit.

   1827, Richard Alfred Davenport, New elegant extracts; a selection from the most eminent prose and epistolary writers Volume 2, page 36

2. Secretive.

   Ye need not be so closehanded of anything I send you: ye may communicate them to whom ye will, for I am little concerned if they be published under others' name or not.

   2014, J.L. Berggren, Jonathan M. Borwein, Peter Borwein, Pi: A Source Book, →ISBN, page 90

   1 more example

   Formerly a tight, closehanded group of archives in fear of studio snoops in search of misappropriated property in the archives' collections, they have since blossomed into relatively open "cinematheques" complete with Rene Beauclair's The International Directory of Film and TV Documentation Centers (1988).

   1997, Thomas Cripps, Hollywood's High Noon: Moviemaking and Society Before Television, →ISBN, page 236

3. obsoleteInvolving close proximity.

   ...a closehanded battle, or tumult, in which the ditferent parties are confusedly mired together, and fight, as we say, pellmell.

   1845, Edward Smedley, Hugh James Rose, Henry John Rose, Encyclopædia Metropolitana; Or, Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, Volume 1, page 115

comparative more closehanded · superlative most closehanded · alternative close-handed

1. Closely, directly.

   As a reporter, I became aware of the problems whistleblowers face closehanded back when I was covering government and local government in Des Moines, Iowa.

   1976, United States Congress: Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, Federal Employee Disclosure Act of 1975, S. 1210, page 21