numb-handed

comparative more numb-handed · superlative most numb-handed

1. Having hands that are numb.

   Soaked to the skin and numb-handed, we secured the boat between two grounded bergs and camped in a long-deserted Inuit hut.

   2009, Ranulph Fiennes, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   The wine-dark seas pass under, and the heavy boats swing round, and the men roll their nets and go, numb-handed, backs bent, harbor bound, gift-laden, home: where light, fast fading, locks land in gold, and gulls cross, crying, the scene, and cross again, crying.

   2014, Risa Bear, Collected Poems, →ISBN

   I was in the delivery room as she was born into this world, nauseated by the excitement and numb-handed from Izzy squeezing the life from my digits.

   2010, Joe Boxer, Memoirs of a Serial Bachelor, →ISBN, page 40

2. Inept or clumsy.

   Most folks associate London with White Fang, The Call of the Wild, and struggling numb-handed to start a fire in the snow. (You know how that one ends.)

   2014, Leath Tonino, Masters of Dig: A tour of authorial abodes

   3 more examples

   'Oh, you scandalous, hypocritical, rusty-booted, numb-handed son of a puffing corn-cutter, why don't you turn your attention to feeding hens, cultivating cabbages, or making pantaloons for small folk, instead of killing hounds in this wholesale way'! roared Jack; an enquiry that set him foaming again.

   2014, Robert Smith Surtees, Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour

   Bette Mandl, who had the original idea for this very special issue on O'Neill and Gender, contacted a particularly fine array of experts in that burgeoning field of study, and pretty much created the entire issue with her usual diligence and grace, leaving numb-handed but happy-hearted me with little to do but sit back and marvel at the splendor of the whole package.

   1995, The Eugene O'Neill Review - Volume 19, page 3

   He signs the painting in a vigorous but numb-handed red - always he finds the signature the most uncomfortable strokes in the canvas - and steps back to observe...

   1978, Sam Borenstein, Texts by William Kuhns and Léo Rosshandler, page 14