wide-handed

comparative more wide-handed · superlative most wide-handed

1. Having hands that are wide.

   Marie makes a distinction between the long-handed and the wide-handed forms.

   1904, Hermann Oppenheim, Diseases of the nervous system, page 922

   3 more examples

   The two masters have fundamentally different ideals of the human form : Fra Filippo's figures are short and thick, round-headed, and wide-handed ; Botticelli's, on the contrary, are tall and slender, with long oval faces and narrow bony hands

   1898, Jean Paul Richter, Lectures on the National Gallery, page 50

   But wide-handed, beef-shouldered Jack Nicklaus, present U.S. Open champ, commonly drives the ball 260 yards, sometimes tops 325.

   1963 May, Robert Gannon, “Why Sports Records are Being Broken: Science or Supermen?”, in Popular Science, page 60

   Handy was a brown-faced man with crisply curling brown hair and blue eyes; a wide-handed, capable Philadelphia seaman.

   2000, John Clagett, Captain Whitecap, →ISBN, page 72

2. Characterized by hands held open and splayed fingers.

   He gave Swainer a wide-handed wave.

   2009, Joe Pernice, It Feels So Good When I Stop, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   It was a strange kind of clapping; a sort of wide-handed upward clap, compounded by the exaggerated nasal voice the hijras used in speech.

   2007, Veronique Renard, Pholomolo: No Man No Woman, →ISBN

   Governments did not dispatch their most elite units, men who are truly not replaceable, unless the situation warranted a razor-sharp slice and not a wide-handed slap.

   2014, Fred Burton, Samuel M. Katz, Under Fire, →ISBN

3. Characterized by hands held away from the torso.

   I like doing 100 by doing 40 normal, 30 wide-handed position, and then 30 in the close-handed position.

   2011, Gary Steven Gautier, Heal Thyself, Optimum Health Forever, →ISBN, page 90

   1 more example

   He gave a wide-handed gesture, puzzled as to why she was at his flat and picking up from the way she clenched her mouth so tightly that she was very tense.

   2014, Lynda La Plante, Twisted, →ISBN

4. Generous

   The men and women of my time were big-hearted and wide-handed people.

   2014, Janet Dailey, Aspen Gold, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   His songwriting success brought Yvain to the notice of wide-handed theatre magnate Gustave Quinson, who had produced Henri Christin6's Phi-Phi three years earlier and, in spite of the fact that the composer had not a full score to his name, Quinson signed him up to write three musicals.

   2001, Kurt Gänzl, Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre, →ISBN, page 2247

   May God, through the wide-handed grace of His pity grant some kind of amnesty.

   2012, Peter Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, →ISBN

comparative more wide-handed · superlative most wide-handed

1. In a wide-handed manner.

   Not such are the beings that earth now breeds : No more the vast god nor the demon : her seeds Wide-handed she scatters, wide-handed feeds

   1889, William Larminie, Glanlua and Other Poems, page 53

   1 more example

   Wide-handed he struck and with open palm on the portion of the bargee's anatomy which, in that position, presented the largest and, in all respects, the most convenient ...

   1914, Albert Payson Terhune, Dad, page 82