Provident, thrifty, well fixed.
1650. An early and forehanded care.—Jeremy Taylor, ‘Holy Living’ (1727), p. 12. (N.E.D.)
1777. Here and there a farmer and a tradesman, who is forehanded and frugal enough to make more money than he has occasion to spend.—J. Adams, ‘Letter to James Warren: Works’ (1854), ix. 454. (N.E.D.)
1834. An old gentleman, who by a long course of thrift and saving had become, as the phrase is, consider’ble forehanded.—Vermont Free Press, Aug. 16.
1843. Ephraim was not forced from home by poverty, for his thrifty industry was fast bringing him to that comfortable state, which obtains in New England the appellation, “fore-handed.”—Yale Lit. Mag., viii. 329 (June).
1854. Wiggins was a little, waspish man, who lived in the country, and was called a ‘forehanded’ farmer.—H. H. Riley, ‘Puddleford,’ p. 99 (N.Y.).
1855. “He leaves, I understand, a large property?” “Well, yes; the Squire was a fore-handed man—well off.”—D. G. Mitchell, ‘Fudge Doings,’ i. 212.
1856. Carpenter and jiner by trade … quite a forehanded man.—Whitcher, ‘The Widow Bedott Papers,’ No. 7.
1870. Father is forehanded; he says I can go to school, but I ain’t going to try it.—Putnam’s Mag., Jan. (de Vere).
1878. Parson he reckoned he’d be amazin’ forehanded this year.—Rose T. Cooke, ‘Cal Culver and the Devil,’ Harper’s Mag., lvii. 574/1 (Sept.).
