lighthanded

comparative more lighthanded · superlative most lighthanded

1. Alternative form of light-handed.
   1. benign and with minimal intervention.

      Does it reflect your position toward the other agencies that, in the words of your Deputy, this program should be as lighthanded as possible?

      1979, United States Congress House Committee on Government Operations. Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources Subcommittee, Energy Conservation Within the Federal Government: The Department of Energy's Role. Hearings, page 104

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      FERC then drew on a potentially significant dictum from Farmers Union II: "Moving from heavy to lighthanded regulation within the boundaries of an unchanged statute can ... be justified by a showing that under current circumstances the goal and purposes of the statute will be accomplished through substantially less regulatory oversight."

      2012, Michael A. Crew, Competition and the Regulation of Utilities, →ISBN, page 81

      On the other hand, lighthanded methods are believed to have more subtle effects on behaviors, often through influencing attitudes, creating knowledge, or manipulating the environment to accomplish desirable ends.

      1997, U.S. National Conference on State Parks, Trends, page 33

   2. Sparing.

      When it came to food, Melissa preferred subtle nuance and lighthanded seasoning.

      2014, Marc Twine, Intermission: Volume 1

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      When sewing strip sets, use a lighthanded approach feeding the strips under the presser foot so the crosswise grain isn't stretched.

      2014, Donna Lynn Thomas, Quiltmaking Essentials I: Cutting and Piecing Skills, →ISBN

   3. nimble and dextrous;

      From all evidence he manages the subtle responsibilities of the tdvana role with a delicate and lighthanded virtuosity.

      1975, Robert I. Levy, Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands, →ISBN, page 44

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      The early works of this painter are a complete study for lighthanded and beautiful execution; they look imitatively perfect, yet many instances are known of his extreme rapidity of execution.

      1893, Richard Redgrave, A Catalogue of the National Gallery of British Art at South Kensington, page 19

      Winterbourne constantly attended for news from the sick-room, which reached him, however, but with worrying indirectness, though he once had speech, for a moment, of the poor girl's physician and once saw Mrs Miller, who, sharply alarmed, struck him as thereby more happily inspired than he could have conceived and indeed as the most noiseless and lighthanded of nurses.

      1877, Henry James, Four Meetings

   4. Light-hearted.

      In recovering the pointedly Spinozist impulse, the deeper critical motivation behind Heine's seemingly lighthanded poetic playfulness comes to the fore.

      2004, Willi Goetschel, Spinoza's Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine, →ISBN, page 268

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      Gaiety and an overflowing, outpouring love, warmth and clarity, a lighthanded ease, replaced the tormented tension of the will which had marked the outgrown stage.

      2003, Ida Friederike Görres, The Hidden Face: A Study of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, →ISBN, page 112

      If you live and work in a small town atmosphere and can find acceptable ways to make yourself and your enterprise known in a lighthanded way to either or both groups in your town, you may find that some day down the road one of them will mention you to a family member who has just offhandedly mentioned the need to get rid of a collection of books.

      2002, Stephen Windwalker, Selling Used Books Online, →ISBN, page 62

   5. flippant.
   6. governmentNot having a full complement of workers.

      Being so lighthanded the vessel could not be properly managed and could carry but little sail, consequently her progress was but slow.

      1887, The Contributor: Representing the Young Men's and Young Ladies' Mutual Improvement Associations of the Latter-day Saints, Volume 8, page 168

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      “We will hold on to the last, while he must begin to take in soon, or the squall will come upon him too fast for a light-handed vessel.”

      1836, James Fenimore Cooper, The Water Witch

   7. Thieving.

      Captive rowlocks keep the oars in the boat while you 're rowing and discourage lighthanded hardware seekers when you go ashore.

      1997 January, Time Carr, “Choosing A Dinghy -- The Hard Way”, in Cruising World

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      You understand what darkies are—as curious as magpies and quite as lighthanded. If one of them had chanced to see Effingham hiding something behind the clock, he would be sure to investigate for himself at the first convenient opportunity.

      1922, Van Tassel Sutphen, In Jeopardy, →ISBN

comparative more lighthanded · superlative most lighthanded

1. Alternative form of light-handed.
   1. Carrying very little.

      The trip was to be a short one this time, and he was going lighthanded, leaving behind him the necessities of life as represented by American articles of diet.

      1909, Annie Laurie Adams Baird, Daybreak in Korea: A Tale of Transformation in the Far East, page 113

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      Though he prayed for a moose, just one moose,all game seemed to have deserted the land, and nightfall found the exhausted man crawling into camp, lighthanded, heavyhearted.

      2013, Jack London, The Son of the Wolf, →ISBN

      The true state of the case is, that manufactures, as a general thing, in view of the depressed condition of the trade, have been making calculations to do a light business, and got out their logs sooner than they expected, and will on the whole do rather more than they had anticipated, having gone into the woods lighthanded.

      1860, William Peter Strickland, Old Mackinaw, or, The fortress of the Lakes and its surroundings, page 351

   2. In a light-handed manner.

      He must go lighthanded to whatever it was that impended.

      1919, The Saturday Evening Post - Volume 191, Issues 49-52, page 124

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      See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair Is, hair of the head, numbered. Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould Will have waked and have waxed and have walked in the wind what while we slept, […]

      1882, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Golden Echo”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC, page 57