LEFT-HANDED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does left-handed mean? 

• LEFT-HANDED (adjective)
  The adjective LEFT-HANDED has 6 senses:

1. using or intended for the left hand

2. (of marriages) illicit or informal

3. (of marriages) of a marriage between one of royal or noble birth and one of lower rank; valid but with the understanding that the rank of the inferior remains unchanged and offspring do not succeed to titles or property of the superior

4. rotating to the left

5. ironically ambiguous

6. lacking physical movement skills, especially with the hands

  Familiarity information: LEFT-HANDED used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LEFT-HANDED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Using or intended for the left hand

Context example:

left-handed scissors

Similar:

left; left-hand (intended for the left hand)

sinistral (preferring to use left foot or hand or eye)

Also:

sinistral (of or on the left)

left (being or located on or directed toward the side of the body to the west when facing north)

Antonym:

ambidextrous (equally skillful with each hand)

right-handed (using or intended for the right hand)

Derivation:

left-handedness (preference for using the left hand)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(of marriages) illicit or informal

Context example:

in Colonial America left-handed marriages between Frenchmen and Indians were frequent

Similar:

illegitimate (of marriages and offspring; not recognized as lawful)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(of marriages) of a marriage between one of royal or noble birth and one of lower rank; valid but with the understanding that the rank of the inferior remains unchanged and offspring do not succeed to titles or property of the superior

Synonyms:

left-handed; morganatic

Similar:

legitimate (of marriages and offspring; recognized as lawful)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Rotating to the left

Synonyms:

left-handed; levorotary; levorotatory

Similar:

anticlockwise; contraclockwise; counterclockwise (in the direction opposite to the rotation of the hands of a clock)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Ironically ambiguous

Context example:

a left-handed compliment

Similar:

ambiguous (having more than one possible meaning)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Lacking physical movement skills, especially with the hands

Synonyms:

bumbling; bungling; butterfingered; ham-fisted; ham-handed; handless; heavy-handed; left-handed

Context example:

could scarcely empty a scuttle of ashes, so handless was the poor creature

Similar:

maladroit (not adroit)

 Context examples 

From that I gather that he is a left-handed man.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It consists of approximately 110 amino acids in a left-handed up-and-down four helix bundle with a left handed twist.

(Bromodomain, NCI Thesaurus)

Now, how can that be unless it were by a left-handed man?

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The owner is obviously a muscular man, left-handed, with an excellent set of teeth, careless in his habits, and with no need to practise economy.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I am a practical man, he said, and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking for a left-handed gentleman with a game leg.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears thick-soled shooting-boots and a grey cloak, smokes Indian cigars, uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his pocket.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)