off-handed, a.

Add: b . Mining. = offhand adj. 4.x-o-u-u-r

1846 W. E. Brockett J. T. Brockett's Gloss. North Country Words (ed. 3) II. 59 All workmen about a coal-pit are said to be off-handed who are not engaged in the business of hewing and putting the coal.x-x-o-u-u 1906 Daily Chron. 16 Oct. 5/2 The ‘off-handed’ men..dispersed into the four seams of the pit.x-o-u-u-u

off-handedly, adv. (Earlier and later examples)

1886 19th Cent. Oct. 541 The newspaper moralisers speak off-handedly of the skilled workman earning his two or three pounds a week.x-o-u-u-x 1905 G. B. Shaw Let. 3 Jan. (1972) II. 485 At my third meeting I was asked to take the chair. I consented as offhandedly as if I were the Speaker of the House of Commons.x-x-o-u-u 1973 J. Wainwright Pride of Pigs 123 He could have felt sorry for Fuller‥to be systematically, off-handedly squashed.x-x-o-u-x