handheld

American  

[hand-held] / ˈhændˌhɛld /

Or hand-held

adjective

1. held in the hand or hands.

   a handheld torch.

2. small enough to be used or operated while being held in the hand or hands.

   a handheld hair drier.

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noun

1. something small enough to be used or operated while held in the hand or hands.

   She traded in her bulky old movie camera for a handheld.

Etymology

Origin of handheld

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

For handheld shots, he instructed extras playing attendees with better credentials to get in his way, not move out of the camera’s path as experience trains them to do.

From Los Angeles Times

The second championed three sessions of a buzzy noninvasive treatment that uses a handheld device to send ultrasound waves and air pressure to stimulate dormant follicles.

From Los Angeles Times

Among the latter is one based on the museum’s holdings that used a handheld scanner to copy items in its collection and that blurs the lines between original objects and reproductions.

From The Wall Street Journal

Shot on a handheld digital camera, the film applies an anarchic home-movie aesthetic to a superbly performed, discomfitingly comic drama of darkness within a family.

From The Wall Street Journal

It also has a camera that flies—literally, in some instances, when the handheld camera is transferred to a drone and the perspective goes airborne.

From The Wall Street Journal