hard-fistedadj.

1612 A. Stafford Medit. & Resol. 122 Gracious Mistresse, as thou hast hitherto hardned mee against all the buffets of hard-fisted Fortune.

1798 J. O'Keeffe Czar Peter ii. iv, in Dramatic Wks. III. 175 Leave the cleaving of timber to his hard-fisted Czar-ship.

1844 N.Y. Herald 18 Oct. That indominitable [sic]—hard fisted—hard shelled democrat, John Donohoo.

1870 Overland Monthly May 422/2 Dingy and seedy were ye, and ragged and weather-beaten, brown as tan-bark and rough as shagreen—hard-fisted and tough, however, and manlike.

1926 J. Black You can't Win xiii. 185 When one of them got peeved..some hard-fisted miner beefed him like an ox.

1987 Sunday Times 4 Oct. 33/2 Kinnock, despite his mellifluousness, is a remarkably hard-fisted, even authoritarian, party leader.

2010 Washington Post (Nexis) 15 Aug. (Bulldog ed.) b7 Stern writes in her characteristically hard-fisted prose.

1646 Bp. J. Hall Balme of Gilead 270 None are so gripple and hard-fisted, as the childlesse.

1705 C. Johnson tr. A. Cowley Fortune in her Wits iv. 49 I believe you'll find it a difficult matter to squeeze a Penny of her Fortune out of that hard-fisted Captain's Possession.

1772 Refl. Petition Subscription 34 The purchaser was a little hard-fisted, in driving the bargain.

1833 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 872 I have denounced the landlords as a close hard-fisted band, Who make bread dear by keeping up monopolies in land.

1890 Daily News 9 Sept. 4/7 Women..this soft-handed but hard-fisted sex.

1934 G. B. Shaw On the Rocks (new ed.) Pref., in Too True to be Good 164 The kulak, the able, hardheaded, hardfisted farmer who was richer than his neighbors.

1952 Manch. Guardian 22 Mar. 22 The commission should exercise its functions not merely as a hard-fisted business concern, but with some regard to the welfare and interests of the men and their families in its charge.

1992 Contemp. Rev. Sept. 160 The facts of life were brought home to him by the hard-fisted American bargainers at Bretton Woods.

2008 Daily Tel. (Austral.) (Nexis) 9 May 34 Twelve years after Peter Costello tried to prove his economic mettle with his hard-fisted first budget, this nation is still living with the consequences.

1807 National Intelligencer & Washington Advertiser 2 Dec. Mr G. hoped they would give up some of that tenacious hard-fistedness which had hitherto clinched their fingers so closely in the purse strings of the national treasury.

1942 Spectator 1 May 423/1 Snobbishness and hard-fistedness would appear to mark the admirers of King Billy.

1980 M. M. Bullard F. Strozzi & Medici vi. 124 It is doubtful whether his hard-fistedness brought a lasting increase in real revenues.

1997 Altoona (Pa.) Mirror 16 Mar. b7/3 This mercurial, poetic, singing race [sc. the Irish] came over here and became silent. Their whimsy turned to hard-fistedness.