adv. and a. [f. prec.]
A. adv. 1. = UNDERHAND adv. 3.
1825. Cobbett, Rur. Rides (1830), I. 342. The Quakers have been urging it on, underhanded.
1857. Dickens, Little Dorrit, II. xx. You are reproaching me, under-handed, with having nobody but you to look to.
2. (Cf. UNDERHAND a. 1 c.)
c. 1822. Laws of Cricket, in Q. Rev. (1884), CLVIII. 471. The ball must be delivered underhanded, not thrown or jerked.
B. adj. (In attributive use u·nderha:nded.)
1. = UNDERHAND a. 2.
1806. [implied in UNDERHANDEDLY adv.].
1853. Dickens, Bleak House, xxxvii. Under-handed charges against John Jarndyce. Ibid. (1865), Mut. Fr., I. ix. Dark deep underhanded plotting.
1884. Harper’s Mag., Feb., 395/2. Life seemed to go on in an underhanded, secret way.
b. = UNDERHAND a. 2 b.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., II. vii. That’s an underhanded mind, Sir.
1899. Mrs. F. H. Burnett, Willoughby Claim, vi. You confounded, sneaking, underhanded little thief!
2. Short of ‘hands’; undermanned.
1834. Coleridge, Table-t., 4 Jan. If that country could be brought to maintain a million more of inhabitants, Norway might defy the world:… but it is much under-handed now.
1858. Froude, Hist. Eng., III. 143. He was still underhanded, and entreated assistance.
1874. S. Wilberforce, Ess., II. 97. The clergy are utterly underhanded.
3. dial. Undersized.
1856. P. Thompson, Hist. Boston, 728. A little, underhanded fellow.
1868–. in Yks. and Cumb. glossaries.
4. Placed or printed below.
1834. American, VIII. 347. Many of the caricatures were originally published in connection with the ‘poem,’ which is underhanded.
Hence Underhandedly adv.; -handedness.
1806. Feltham’s Resolves, I. 106. To applaud virtue would procure us far more honour, than underhandedly seeking to disparage her.
1884. Tennyson, Becket, Prol. All left-handedness and under-handedness.
1886. Athenæum, 11 Sept., 335/1. A great deal of indirectness—not to say underhandedness.
1891. H. C. Halliday, Someone must Suffer, III. xii. 213. You had acted underhandedly and deceived him.
