hamfist

present singular third person hamfists · participle present hamfisting · participle past hamfisted · past hamfisted

1. colloquialTo handle crudely.

   Heyoka, dressed in outlandish masks, or sporting phallic false noses, proceeded to impede and obstruct the cooking, neglecting to singe off the dog’s hair, hamfisting the butchering.

   2006 November 15, Kingsley M. Bray, “Crying for a Vision”, in Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life (The Civilization of the American Indian Series; 254), Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, pages 44–45

   3 more examples

   We had an open race and clocks were being read in the clubroom and I had the dubious pleasure of opening the clocks and taking out the ribbons, reckon I’d never make a clock ‘fixer’ the way I was hamfisting through the job, the old Toulets and Benzings were OK but it happened!!

   1972, “Scottish Racing Section”, in Britain’s Year Book of Pigeon Racing, Weybridge, Surrey: Pigeon Racing News & Gazette, →OCLC, page 227

   Burikko refers to a girl who likes to act all cutesy or innocent, usually adult women who fawn on men affectedly and act like little girls. […] (There is no satisfactory English equivalent, and I don’t believe in hamfisting things just to seem like a ‘better translator’.[…])

   2015 January 21, Estelulu [pseudonym], “Translator Notes”, in Sakura Ageha, Otome Game no Burikko Akuyaku Onna wa Mahou Otaku ni Natta, archived from the original on 30 Dec 2019, page 3

   It’s pretty seismic to just suddenly shift out to Charles III rather than Carolus. If the Royal Mint wants to have a discussion and say actually all coins need to be in English from now on, so be it. But don’t sort of hamfist [it] by putting the two and trying to fudge it.

   2022 October 7, India McTaggart, quoting Gregory Edmund, “Vale, Carolus: Latin name for King Charles dropped from new coins”, in Chris Evans, editor, The Daily Telegraph, London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC

plural hamfists