a. [UN-1 7. Cf. WFris. on-, ûnhandich, Du. onhandig, LG. unhandig, Da. uhændig, Norw. uhendig, Sw. ohändig.]
1. Not easy to handle or manage; inconvenient, awkward, clumsy.
1664. Etheredge, Love in Tub, II. iii. If she be not as kind as fair, But peevish and unhandy, Leave her.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, II. (Globe), 422. They took in Pieces all my clumsy unhandy Things.
1775. R. Chandler, Trav. Asia M. (1825), I. 68. Our boat carried a large unhandy sail.
1778. [W. H. Marshall], Minutes Agric., Digest, 47. Their being worked double made them unhandy.
1816. J. Wilson, City of Plague, II. v. 114. These swords are ugly and unhandy things.
1871. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., Feb., 91. The very size and nature of the rig of many of the Spanish ships rendered them unwieldy and ‘unhandy,’ as sailors call it.
1876. N. Amer. Rev., CXXIII. 32. An unhandy arrangement, which detracts from the value of the work.
1895. Jane Barlow, Strangers at Lisconnel, ii. 25. ‘That’s unhandy, now’ said Jerry.
2. Not skillful in using the hands; lacking in dexterity.
1669. Shadwell, Royal Shepherd, I. i. O fie, Urania! how unhandy art thou! Sir, let me practise my little skill in surgery Upon you.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, III. ii. Yet in the common actions and behaviour of life, I have not seen a more clumsy, awkward, and unhandy people.
1798. W. Hutton, Life, 6. Being hurt at seeing the nurse unhandy, she would do the work herself.
1850. Grote, Greece, II. lx. (1862), V. 288. The Akarnanian darters … were for this reason unhandy with their missiles.
1876. Trevelyan, Macaulay (1883), I. 123. He was unhandy to a degree quite unexampled in the experience of all who knew him.
fig. 1683. Kennett, Erasm. on Folly, 32. Wise men were so awkward and unhandy in the ordering of publick affairs.
