four-handed

Also four-hand

[fawr-han-did, fohr-]

adjective

1. involving four hands or players, as a game at cards.

   Bridge is usually a four-handed game.

2. intended for four hands, as a piece of music for the piano.

3. having four hands, or four feet adapted for use as hands; quadrumanous.

four-handed

adjective

1. (of a card game) arranged for four players

2. (of a musical composition) written for two performers at the same piano

Other Word Forms

• four-handedly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of four-handed¹

First recorded in 1765–75

Example Sentences

She played a four-handed Mozart duet with President Harry S Truman, performed at President John F Kennedy's inauguration and was recognised by President Ronald Reagan as the first American woman to celebrate a 50-year concert career.

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In 1914, Debussy supervised Henri Büsser in creating two new versions of the work — one for orchestra and another for four-handed piano, to which I’ve grown quite attached.

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Unsurprisingly, Daub, who has written books on Wagner and four-handed piano playing, is more rigorous than Andreessen when it comes to critical analysis.

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This four-handed masterpiece for a piano duo shimmers on the surface while its depths stall and surge — a fitting match for the shifting temperament of the piece, including the little trills that dart like dragonflies into the largo.

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You’ll likely have two people working on you at a time—a technique known as “four-handed dentistry”—in order to speed up the procedures and control the amount of spit that gets into the air.

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