numb-handed
English
Etymology
numb + handed
Adjective
numb-handed (comparative more numb-handed, superlative most numb-handed)
- Having hands that are numb.
- 2014, Risa Bear, Collected Poems, →ISBN:
- 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.
- 2010, Joe Boxer, Memoirs of a Serial Bachelor, →ISBN, page 40:
- 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.
- 2009, Ranulph Fiennes, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, →ISBN:
- Soaked to the skin and numb-handed, we secured the boat between two grounded bergs and camped in a long-deserted Inuit hut.
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- Inept or clumsy.
- 2014, Robert Smith Surtees, Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour:
- '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.
- 2011, Kit Whitfield, Bareback, →ISBN, page 145:
- I'm clumsy, stupid, making a numb-handed mess on the clean cloth.
- 1995, The Eugene O'Neill Review - Volume 19, page 3:
- 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.
- 1978, Sam Borenstein, Texts by William Kuhns and Léo Rosshandler, page 14:
- 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...
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