handedness
Americannoun
noun
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the tendency to use one hand more skilfully or in preference to the other
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the property of some chemical substances of rotating the plane of polarized light in one direction rather than another See also dextrorotation laevorotation
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the relation between the vectors of spin and momentum of neutrinos and certain other elementary particles See also helicity
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A preference for using one hand rather than the other to perform most manual tasks and activities. Most people are right-handed. Historically, it has been theorized that handedness is associated with a dominance of the opposite cerebral hemisphere of the brain, but this has not been conclusively proven. Although the scientific basis for handedness is unknown, the fact that left-handed parents more frequently have left-handed offspring suggests at least a partial genetic component. Some experts believe that children are trained to favor one hand over the other (usually the right hand.). Handedness is usually established in the first few years of life.
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See chirality
Etymology
Origin of handedness
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.
Researchers have spent decades studying the brain, genetics, and development behind handedness, but the reason humans became so strongly right-handed has remained unclear.
From Science Daily • May 18, 2026
Using Bayesian modeling that considered how species are evolutionarily related, the researchers tested several major theories about the origins of handedness.
From Science Daily • May 18, 2026
The researchers found that certain amino acids, like cysteine, would bind to borophene in distinct locations, depending on their chiral handedness.
From Science Daily • May 7, 2024
One of them had to be circularly polarized in one direction, and the other needed to be the second harmonic of the first beam, polarized with the opposite handedness.
From Science Daily • Apr. 24, 2024
No, it was meant to determine if you were right brained or left brained, usually connoted by handedness.
From "Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story" by Nora Raleigh Baskin
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.
