ham-handed

especially British, ham-fist·ed

[ham-han-did]

adjective

1. clumsy, inept, or heavy-handed.

   a ham-handed approach to dealing with people that hurts a lot of feelings.

Other Word Forms

• hamhandedness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of ham-handed¹

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Last month, following a ham-handed government attempt to ban most social-media apps, thousands of young protesters took to the streets of Kathmandu, the capital.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Donny is certainly demented, but he’s not nearly delusional enough that he didn’t recognize the single most ham-handed posterior puckering since “this Nobel award” was ever talked about.

Read more on Salon

Former President Barack Obama, an alumnus himself, called Trump's move "ham-handed" and praised Harvard as "an example for other higher-ed institutions".

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Obama, a Harvard alum, described the freeze as "unlawful and ham-handed".

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While the film’s execution seems expert on the surface, the internal narrative design is unfortunately ham-handed and woefully dull.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• bulky 
• heavy-handed 
• inept 
• ponderous 
• ungainly 
• unwieldy