one-armedadj.

1809 Thespiad 10 Every subsequent comedy would have contained a weather-beaten, one-armed sailor.

1818 Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 33 73 He cowed the one-armed Admiral.

1888 F. T. Elworthy W. Somerset Word-bk. One-arm'd landlord, cant name for a pump.

1890 Spectator 27 Sept. 413 This writer..has great power, but of a one-armed sort.

1914 W. B. Yeats Responsibilities 26 A one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man.

1948 E. Forbes Running of Tide i. 17 His clumsy shoes, made by a one-armed cobbler here at the Charity House, alone betrayed his domicile.

1992 National Trust Mag. Autumn 28/2 In the courtyard the one-armed clock strikes twelve times. Midday. No one knows why there is only a short-hand, though there is a saying that minutes have never been important at Ightham Mote.

2000 M. Gayle Turning Thirty lxiii. 229 Elaine was always Dr Shula Hobgoblin, a one-armed hot-headed maverick surgeon new to the trauma department.

1936 N.Y. Times 7 June iv. 10/6 The Esquirol-Robinson Act, passed in 1934, grew out of this agitation; it definitely outlawed the ‘one-armed bandit’.

1972 D. Francis Smokescreen vi. 70 There's more cars parked along the streets down there than one-armed bandits in Nevada.

2001 Guardian 26 Oct. i. 21/2 There were old-fashioned nannyish restrictions to be removed from casinos (no drinking, must be a club member), some new ones needed (protecting children from one-armed bandits).

1908 ‘O. Henry’ Gentle Grafter 232 And then I got as busy as a one-armed man with the nettle-rash pasting on wall-paper.]

1918 R. J. Casey Jrnl. 10 Oct. in Cannoneers have Hairy Ears 224 Still working like a one-armed paper-hanger for one division or another.

1969 New Yorker 12 Apr. 80/2 ‘We'll be as busy as one-armed paperhangers,’ says Lind.

1997 Commentary Apr. 53/1 Above all, like the one-armed paper-hanger of old, he rushes around attempting to deal with exceptions to his general theory.