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Free-handed   Listen
adjective
Free-handed  adj.  
1.
Open-handed; liberal; given or giving freely or liberally; as, a freehanded host.
Synonyms: big, bighearted, bounteous, bountiful, handsome, giving, liberal, openhanded.
2.
Same as freehand.
Synonyms: free, freehand, unguided, untraced.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Free-handed" Quotes from Famous Books



... conscientious magistrate, Savarin was better adapted to play the kindly friend and cordial host than the stern and impartial judge. He was a convivial soul, a lover of good cheer and free-handed hospitality; and to-day, while almost forgotten as a jurist, his name has become immortalized as the representative of gastronomic excellence. His 'Physiologic du Gout'—"that olla podrida which defies analysis," as Balzac calls it—belongs, like ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... and accurate knowledge illuminated by feeling and emotion. He rebuked ignorance in a way which communicated the desire to know. There are many men alive who trace the fruit and flower of their intellectual life to his generous and free-handed sowing. But in spite of the fact that the work of a teacher of boys was intensely congenial to him, that he loved generous boyhood, and tender souls, and awakening minds with all his heart, he was not wholly in the right place as an instructor of youth. With all his sympathy ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... imperious wants of his family. It is the peculiarity of the Irish to know how to combine generosity with the deprivation almost of the common necessaries of life. When masters of their own soil, a large hospitality and a free-handed "bestowing of gifts"—such, we believe, was the Irish expression—was universal among them; the poorest clansman would have been ashamed not to imitate, in his degree, the liberal spirit of his prince. They often gave all they had, regardless of the future; and, ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... affair always amused her; though, in fact, it came to pass easily. She had the great fortune of the family. Being a widow with no children, and the time not being come when philanthropy beckons on the right hand and on the left to free-handed women, Mrs. Carriswood travelled. As she expressed it, she was searching the globe for a perfect climate. "Not that I in the least expect to find it," said she, cheerfully, "but I like to vary my disappointments; when I get worn out being frozen, winters, ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet

... gin'rous,—yes, 'tis downright free-hearted, and free-handed, and gin'rous. This is the way with women; when they take up a fri'ndship, they do nothing by halves, but are as willing to part with their property as if it had no value in their eyes. However, while I thank you both, just as much as if the bargain was made, and Rivenoak, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... hand as parts of its environment, and on the other hand as partners in the general enterprise of life. Thus there is evolved the moral idea, or principle of action, according to which interest allies itself with interest in order to be free-handed and powerful against the common hereditary enemy, the heavy inertia and the incessant wear of the cosmos. Through morality a plurality of interests becomes an ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry

... firm of Scott and Bowne was also of Scottish descent. Edmond Urquhart (b. 1834) was one of the pioneers in the creation of the cotton seed oil industry. To Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), born in Dunfermline, "the richest and most free-handed Scot who ever lived," more than anyone else is due the great steel and iron industry of the United States. His innumerable gifts for public libraries, etc., are too well known to need detailing here. To New York alone he gave over five million dollars to establish circulating branches ...
— Scotland's Mark on America • George Fraser Black

... Caryl!" and yielded him a sort of absent-minded hand, while he kept his face turned smilingly upon the men. Some were holding the rails in position, and another was driving in the spike that was to rivet the plate to the sleeper. He struck it with exquisite accuracy from a wide, free-handed rhythmical swing ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... the wail of distress, however simulated—who prefer giving at once, because it "does their own hearts good," to the trouble of inquiring or the pain of refusing,—who would rather relieve twenty rogues than miss the blessing of one honest soul who was ready to perish,—those kind-hearted, free-handed scatterers of indiscriminate benevolence who are the keen-eyed, whining cadger's chief support, his standing joke, and favourite prey; and who are more than ever disposed to give to whomsoever shall ask of them in such a season as this. All the mendicancy which appears on our streets ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh

... little more free-handed out here than we are," remarked the Captain. "Where we come from, people allow a man to go free after exhausting all the resources of the law, while here, they quietly hang a scoundrel when they catch him without making any fuss about it. It's much simpler, ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... lucky myself with a few friends." Who in England has not heard that form of speech, over and over again? And what Englishman has travelled in the States without hearing abuse of all English institutions uttered amidst the pauses of a free-handed hospitality which has left ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... you thought you slept. Softly they came, and beached the boat, and gathered In the still cove under the icy stars, Your last-born, and the dear loves of your heart, And all men that have loved right more than ease, And honor above honors; all who gave Free-handed of their best for other men, And thought their giving taking: they who knew Man's natural state is effort, up and up— All these were there, so great a company Perchance you marvelled, wondering what great ship Had brought that throng unnumbered to ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... event, four days under his cousin's roof. The "all" proved a great many people, for she had taken care to fill the house. She took the largest view of hospitality and Nick had never seen her so splendid, so free-handed, so gracefully active. She was a perfect mistress of the revels; she had arranged some ancient bravery for every day and for every night. The Dormers were so much in it, as the phrase was, that after all their discomfiture ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... be so clost about it, though," he added. "Give 'm the whole thing while you're about it, in a right free-handed way." ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... iron-wood from the North, thick as the man's wrist at the top. It pulled Skag's eye a second time. It meant the surrender of his faith in his own free-handed powers to reach for the lakri; it meant the fight to death. It meant he must disappear from the cobra's eye an instant behind the playhouse. . . . Carlin's tones were in the air. He could not live or breathe until the threshold was clear—no concentration but that. . . . Like the last outburst ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... wilderness, kept them sound and strong and brave, both in body and mind. There was nothing languid or effeminate about the Virginian planter. He was a robust man, quite ready to fight or work when the time came, and well fitted to deal with affairs when he was needed. He was a free-handed, hospitable, generous being, not much given to study or thought, but thoroughly public-spirited and keenly alive to the interests of Virginia. Above all things he was an aristocrat, set apart by the dark line of race, color, and hereditary servitude, as ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... and young Blount, that is high in the Queen's Majesty's favour: and my young Lord of Essex, unto whom she showeth good countenance. 'Tis not possible to lower one's self in the eyes of such men as these—and assuredly I should were I less free-handed." ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt

... more," she said bluntly. "You may never get it back. Why should you supply him with money that you've worked for when he won't make any effort to get it for himself? You're altogether too free-handed, Robin." ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... of personality in theatrical life," the great Madame Orloff told the doctor with her usual free-handed use of language, "it is like breathing a thin, pure air to be here again with our dear inhuman old Vieyra. He hypnotizes me into his own belief that nothing matters—not broken hearts, nor death, nor success, nor first love, ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield

... advertised 'em that well as there'll be smart bidding between the farmers and some of the squatters. Good store cattle's been scarce, and these is in such rattling condition. That's what'll sell 'em. Your master seems a regular free-handed sort of chap. He's the jolliest squatter there's been in town these years, I hear folk say. Puts 'em in mind of Hawdon and Evelyn Sturt in ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood



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