English

Alternative forms

• onehandedness

Noun

one-handedness ‎(uncountable)

1. The quality of having a dominant hand; left-handedness or right-handedness.
   • 1875, Richard Anthony Proctor, Science Byways, page 326:

     Again some persons are too right-handed (I question, indeed, whether one-handedness, whether right or left be chiefly employed, does not in all cases involve a loss of power).

2. Chirality
   • 2011, Faïza Bergaya, ‎B.K.G. Theng, ‎& G. Lagaly, Handbook of Clay Science, ISBN 0080457630, page 383:

     It must be noted that the stimulating hypotheses of Cairns-Smith (1982) emphasizing the role of clays in the origin of life do not account for the crucial one-handedness of biopolymers required to ensure the survival of self-replicating organic systems.

3. The possession of only one hand or the ability to use only one hand; the loss of the use of one hand.
   • 2011, Hanna Zacks, More Than Meets the Eye: A Journey Into the Mysteries of Psychic Phenomena, ISBN 1462004938, page 48:

     The young man had married a woman who had only one hand, and it was on the fact of her one-handedness that my thought was focused.

   • 2014, Teodor Mladenov, Critical Theory and Disability: A Phenomenological Approach, ISBN 1628922001:

     Phenomenologically speaking, such differences are immediately incorportated into the lived body by being endowed with meaning in the context of one's everyday activities. Thus one-handedness can be lived, for example, as difficulty with pouring water into a jug, blindness--as exclusion from social interaction, and deafness -- as peaceful silence in the midst of a noisy journey.

4. The state of choosing to use only one hand.
   • 2009, Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, ISBN 1439190496:

     A later generation of bebop pianists would often be accused of one-handedness; their right hands flew along with melodies and improvisations, while their "weak" left hands just plonked chords.

   • 2001, Fred Howard, Human Creatures, ISBN 1462827160, page 121:

     One-handedness is essential for training to great skill in balanced action with any sensible design of weapon, as in fencing, but more especially when fighting from behind a tree or when being prepared to run if overcome (except possibly with bows and arrows where the defense handedness is reversed.)

   • 1990, C. W. Smith & ‎James Ward Lee, Thin Men of Haddam, ISBN 0875650783, page 11:

     Bond's production of the One-Handed Cigarette Roll has passed unattended — Mendez refuses to acknowledge the one-handedness simply to thwart Bond, whose cigarette rolling he believes to originate more from histrionic impulse than economic necessity.

5. The quality of being designed for only one hand.
   • 2015, Nancy J. Hirschmann & ‎Beth Linker, Civil Disabilities: Citizenship, Membership, and Belonging, ISBN 0812246675, page 132:

     As can be witnessed in a performance of that work by Fleisher, it is indeed a dazzling display piece in which, if it is only heard and not seen, its one-handedness might evade listeners' notice.

6. A state in which only one person is active
   • 1884, Good Words Volume 25, page 67:

     Holding intercourse with Sir William at this date partook a good deal of the nature of a one-handed conversation, and the one-handedness seemed to increase when the only share of the host, in the post-prandial conviviality, consisted in passing the decanters, which Sir William was scrupulous to do.

7. (metaphoric) Weakness, limitation
   • 1892, The Review of Reviews - Volume 4, page 466:

     Mr. Herbert makes his moan over the awful one-handedness and one-leggedness of our rich classes, who are smitten with the universal incapacity to help theniselves.