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cack-handed

adj

Etymology

From cag (“knob, stump”) + handed; cf. also cack (“excrement”).

  1. inherited from *handuz✻
  2. inherited from *handu✻
  3. inherited from hand
  4. inherited from hond
  5. suffixed as handed — “hand + ed”
  6. compounded as cack-handed — “cag + handed”

Definitions

  1. Clumsy

    Clumsy; inept.

    • There is the chairperson who will introduce you by saying that you need no introduction, and who will bring the session to a close with some cack-handed joke based on a phrase plucked from your talk.
    • ‘Just bend your arms and cradle him on them,’ I told her. She was so cack-handed I could hardly watch. I was short with her when I said, ‘Have you never held a baby before?’

  2. Left-handed.

    • A left-handed child would be held up to ridicule, and the hand tied to prevent its use. In some parts of England left-handers are called “cack-handed” […]

  3. Back-handed.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for cack-handed. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA