high-handed

[hahy-han-did]

adjective

1. condescending or presumptuous; overbearing; arbitrary.

   He has a highhanded manner.

high-handed

adjective

1. tactlessly overbearing and inconsiderate

Other Word Forms

• high-handedly adverb
• high-handedness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of high-handed¹

First recorded in 1625–35

Example Sentences

Yet Bill Hodges, executive director of the Orange County division of the League of California Cities, maintains that L.A. is still high-handed when it comes to regional issues.

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Conservative hereditary peer Lord Strathclyde called the legislation a "high-handed, shoddy political act".

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But Idaho’s Republican legislators have been way too cavalier and high-handed about this problem, burying their heads in the sand and refusing to fix it.

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But that relationship will always be hostage to events; either a flare-up in the South China Sea, or any other act by China seen as high-handed by the Vietnamese.

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The party has also been accused of legitimizing New Delhi’s high-handed militaristic policies there.

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Related Words

• authoritarian 
• autocratic 
• dictatorial 
• imperious 
• overbearing 
• tyrannical