backhanded
Americanadjective
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performed with the hand turned backward, crosswise, or in any oblique direction so that the palm of the hand faces in the direction of the body and the back of the hand faces in the direction of forward movement.
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sloping in a downward direction from left to right.
backhanded writing.
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oblique or ambiguous in meaning; indirect; insincere or malicious; wry.
backhanded methods; a backhanded compliment.
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Ropemaking. noting a rope in which the yarns and the strands are laid in the same direction, the rope itself being laid in the opposite direction.
adverb
adjective
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(of a blow, shot, stroke, etc) performed with the arm moving across the body
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double-edged; equivocal
a backhanded compliment
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(of handwriting) slanting to the left
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(of a rope) twisted in the opposite way to the normal right-handed direction
adverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of backhanded
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“It may be a backhanded way of acknowledging that she’d be quite formidable if she decided to get in.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 10, 2026
That No 10 feels the need to criticise the Greens is a backhanded compliment that shows they matter.
From BBC • Jan. 31, 2026
Last Thanksgiving was full of backhanded compliments and pointed remarks.
From MarketWatch • Nov. 27, 2025
In a 1919 review of a pair of books by Theodore Dreiser, Virginia Woolf issued some exquisitely backhanded praise for the Indiana-born author, whose writing, she thought, stood out for its roughness and vitality.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 7, 2025
Tears slid down her cheeks and she backhanded them away.
From "The Boy in the Black Suit" by Jason Reynolds
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
