left-handed

using or intended for the lefts hand

• “left-handed golfers need left-handed clubs”
• “left-handed scissors”

(of marriages) illicit or informal

• “in Colonial America left-handed marriages between Frenchmen and Indians were frequent”

(of marriages) of a marriage between one of royal or noble birth and one of lower rank; valid but with the understanding that the rank of the inferior remains unchanged and offspring do not succeed to titles or property of the superior

rotating to the left

ironically ambiguous

• “a left-handed compliment”

not skillful in physical movement especially with the hands

• “a bumbling mechanic”
• “a bungling performance”
• “ham-handed governmental interference”
• “could scarcely empty a scuttle of ashes, so handless was the poor creature” Mary H. Vorse