a1425 Medulla Gram. (Stonyhurst) f. 37^v Leuus, lyft honded.

1532 L. Cox Art or Crafte Rhetoryke sig. C.vi The yonge man afterwarde was named Sceuola, whiche is as moche to say in Englyssh as lefte handed.

1596 ‘L. Pyott’ tr. A. Sylvain Orator vi. 43 Few men are left handed.

1644 J. Bulwer Chirologia 127 Commodus the Emperor..was wont to boast much that he was Left-handed.

1709 R. Steele et al. Tatler No. 59 in Lucubrations Isaac Bickerstaff (1710) I. 2/1 They are all Left-handed, and have always been very expert at Single Rapier.

1782 European Mag., & London Rev. Mar. 171/1 Negligence sometimes suffers a child to grow up left-handed.

1825 Monthly Gaz. Health No. 119. 347 We..saw a child of a nobleman with the left arm confined,..to prevent her from being left-handed!

1892 Pall Mall Gaz. 4 July 6/1 Perhaps some physiologist can explain..why a left-handed bowler is nearly always a right-handed bat.

1926 Amer. Speech 1 369/2 They [sc. baseball players] are ‘south-paws’ or ‘port-siders’ or ‘side-wheelers’ when they are left-handed.

1963 Times 11 May 9/7 I understand the ‘Chinaman’ to be simply an off break bowled out of the back or side of the hand by a left-handed bowler.

2011 Fortean Times Mar. 47/3 A left-handed person who has either of the cerebral hemispheres removed nevertheless remains left-handed.

1580 J. Lyly Euphues & his Eng. (new ed.) f. 34^v A Phrase nowe there is which belongeth to your Shoppe boorde, that is to make loue, and when I shall heare of what fashion it is made, if I like the pattorne, you shal cut me a partlet: so as you cut it not with a paire of left handed sheeres.

1590 R. Harvey Plaine Percevall 8 Another, takes him by the nose with a paire of left-handed pincers.

a1657 G. Daniel Idyllia in Poems (1878) IV. v. 42 Rather then want a Target, Perkins Tents Are Search't vp, for Left-handed Implements.

1757 D. Hume Nat. Hist. Relig. xv, in Four Diss. i. 113 It is drawn only..from the left-handed vessel.

1763 J. Brown Diss. Poetry & Music 66 Commentators and Critics ring Changes on their single, double, oblique, right-handed, and left-handed Flutes.

1825 A. Knapp & W. Baldwin Newgate Cal. IV. 335/1 A left-handed gun, as the lock was at this side.

1895 Decatur (Illinois) Daily Republican 16 Dec. 7/5 There are no left-handed pianos.

1939 E. Marsh Number of People x. 235 Sir, I can't find your left-handed nail-scissors.

1971 Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times 7 Jan. 10/1 My newest pitcher..is hand-blown Pilgrim glass and it's left handed.

2006 ‘A. Ant’ Stand & Deliver iii. 63 I vividly recall..his famous left-handed Hofner violin bass.

?1790 D. Mendoza Mod. Art of Boxing (new ed.) viii. 47 He..received a gash upon his right ribs, in consequence of a straight forward left-handed blow of his antagonist.

1814 Sporting Mag. Sept. 240/1 Hall met him with a left-handed facer.

1855 C. O. B. Davis Renowned Chief Kawiti & other N.Z. Warriors i. 4/2 Te Ihi..gave Rangawhenua a left handed stroke, and he fell bleeding at his feet.

1953 Boys' Life Dec. 18/1 He shifted the ax to his left hand, grasped the trunk with his right, and swung... The left-handed blow glanced upward.

2007 Times 14 Aug. 31/5 A chinaman is an unconventional left-handed ball that breaks from off to leg-side, right to left for a right-handed batsman.

a1425 Medulla Gram. (Stonyhurst) f. 39^v Mancius, lyfthonded.

?a1475 Promptorium Parvulorum (Winch.) (1908) 258 Left handyd man [1440 Harl. Left hande man], mancinus.

1629 Leather 10 How many..Manuall Trades must be left-handed and go lame, if Leather..bee taken from them.

1636 J. Taylor Honorable & Memorable Found. sig. D3^v Chertsey..where there is a decayed left handed Bridge over the River, I wish it mended.

1579 T. North tr. Plutarch Liues 385 And such as counterfeated to follow any of his doinges, and came shorte of his maner, he called them left handed Catoes [Fr. sinistres Catons].

a1625 F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Captaine iii. vi, in Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Hh3^v/1 That thou mayst know him perfectly, hee's one Of a left-handed making, a lanck thing.

1655 T. Fuller Hist. Univ. Cambr. v. 73 in Church-hist. Brit. A good Artist is left-handed to no profession.

1750 tr. C.-J.-L.-A. R. de La Morlière Angola I. i. 7 All that they do is in the most clumsy left-handed manner imaginable [Fr. est..d'un gauche insoutenable].

1807 J. Beresford Miseries Human Life II. xviii. 193 A minor critic..puzzling himself to death with twenty left-handed conjectures about nothing.

1863 A. Blomfield Mem. Bp. Blomfield I. vii. 203 Disproving the assertion of Fuller..that spiritual men are generally left-handed in secular affairs.

1596 T. Playfere Pathway Perfection 57 The deuill hath a method which is without any methode, and an order which is contrary to all good order, and a left handed direction which bringeth them to finall confusion.

1616 B. Jonson Epicœne iii. v, in Wks. I. 559 You are a man constant to your own ends, and vpright to your purposes, that would not be put off with left-handed cries. View more context for this quotation

1650 T. Bayly Worcesters Apophthegmes Ep. Ded. sig. A2^v The (Left-handed) stroaks of fortune, which have lately fallen so heavily, upon your Illustrious Family.

1679 J. Dryden & N. Lee Oedipus i. 11 And, while Jove holds us out the bowl of Joy..it's dasht with Gall By some left-handed God.

1711 C. Lockyer Acct. Trade India vi. 168 A sprightly Temper, which the Chinese have been remarkably defective in, ever since their left handed Fortune subjected them to a Yoke, they think the heavier, for the inconsiderable Power the Tartars had, before they got this wealthy Empire to make them great.

1809 B. H. Malkin tr. A. R. Le Sage Adventures Gil Blas II. vi. i. 425 Was not that a left-handed dream for him, master secretary?

1976 Caribbean Q. 22 58 The ojha (obeahman) and dāyin or dāyan (witches) practise certain left-handed (bāmamārga) rites in shmashān (crematorium or burning grounds). Many Hindus therefore try to propitiate the monkey-faced god Hanumān to counteract the evil spirits.

1610 G. Fletcher Christs Victorie To Rdr. sig. ¶¶ Thear ar many of those few, that carry so left-handed an opinion of it, as some of them thinke it halfe sacrilege for prophane Poetrie to deale with divine and heauenly matters.

1650 N. Ward Discolliminium 17 They are dextrously pragmatick in all Left-handed worke.

1735 Visct. Bolingbroke Diss. upon Parties (ed. 2) 2 There is need of that left-handed Wisdom.

1775 J. Adair Hist. Amer. Indians 452 Lest necessity should compel her..to pay..dear for her left-handed wisdom.

1804 Med. & Physical Jrnl. 12 63 The spurious left-handed inflammation of erysipelas.

1899 Law Jrnl. 11 Nov. 577/2 If this exemption..was designed as a concession to farmers, it is a curiously left-handed one.

1917 H. E. Cory E. Spenser i. 27 I find it impossible to understand Professor Herford, usually so sure in his appreciation, in his rather left-handed praise of this eclogue.

1953 Time 3 Aug. 36/1 An enthusiastic patter of applause came from the British press, including a left-handed compliment from the Manchester Guardian that he was not at all like the movie-type American.

2008 S. Plumly Posthumous Keats 85 Shelley may be pleading against oblivion for Keats's name, but he is doing it in a rather left-handed way.

1615 Bp. J. Hall Contempl. III. ix. 46 This left-handed man comes with a present in his hand, but a dagger vnder his skirt.

1694 P. A. Motteux tr. F. Rabelais 5th Bk. Wks. vi. 19 Ill-natur'd lefthanded Godlings and Vejoves.

1707 J. Stevens tr. F. de Quevedo Comical Wks. (1709) 328 'Tis not safe trusting a Left Handed Man with Money.

1726 Let. to Reverend Mr. J. Henley 13 I think your Design is..to pursue your own left-handed Ends, and get Wealth.

1889 Evening Tel. & Star & Sheffield Daily Times 29 Nov. 2/3 The house occupied by the first Napoleon during his exile in St. Helena has been improved out of all knowledge... Such a left-handed proceeding is this that one is almost persuaded that the London County Council must have had a hand in it.

1653 B. Whitelocke Jrnl. 30 Dec. in Jrnl. Swedish Ambassy (1772) I. 280 He marryed the king of Denmarke's daughter by a left-handed wife (as they are there called).

1664 T. Killigrew Parsons Wedding i. i, in Comedies & Trag. 76 Do you not know he's married according to the Rogues Liturgy? a Left-handed Bridegroom.

1760 S. Foote Minor i. 20 A left-handed marriage, in the language of the news papers.

1788 H. Walpole Reminiscences (1924) i. 19 The children of a left-handed alliance are not entitled to inherit.

1835 R. Southey Cowper's Life & Wks. I. 102 His mistress, whom he [sc. Churchill] considered now as his left-handed wife, united to him by moral ties.

1839 J. C. Maitland Let. 10 June in Lett. from Madras (1843) 274 The half-caste young left-handed ladies look down upon the poor little honestly-born Europeans.

1865 J. R. Lowell in N. Amer. Rev. July 204 Shall we succeed better in trying a second left-handed marriage between democracy and another form of aristocracy?

1885 Manch. Examiner 21 Jan. 5/2 Caroline Bauer..represents herself..as having..become the left-handed wife of the late King of Belgium.

1925 T. Dreiser Amer. Trag. I. ii. xxii. 308 The pleasures of this left-handed honeymoon were at full tide.

1935 A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 70/2 Left handed wife, a kept woman.

1996 B. Nicholas Introd. Rom. Law ii. 84 The later Empire..was hostile to concubinage as an unregulated union, and tended to make of it a left-handed marriage, subject to some of the rules of a full marriage.