English

Adjective

emptyhanded ‎(comparative more emptyhanded, superlative most emptyhanded)

1. With nothing in one's hands.
   • 1968, Mark Lane, A Citizen's Dissent: Mark Lane Replies, page 90:

     If, for example, Oswald was not "emptyhanded" but, as the original reports had it, had been drinking a Coca-Cola — there was a vending machine in the lunchroom where the encounter occurred — then he almost certainly could not have left the sixth-floor window after firing the shots, hid the rifle on the sixth floor, run down to the second floor, entered the lunchroom, operated the machine, ...

2. Impoverished, having no money or resources.
   • 2002, S. Y. Agnon, Only Yesterday, ISBN 0691095442, page 62:

     As he walked about in the village, Isaac saw those inhabitants who had come to the Land emptyhanded and now own fields and vineyards and houses full of good things, not by virtue of observing the Torah and pious deeds, for the Biluim were free thinkers and their feet too are on the ground, but because they're Russians and I'm from Galicia, and even the one small village the Galicians put up fell to rack and ruin.

3. Having nothing to offer
   • 1977, The Department of State Bulletin, page 576:

     I come to this conference bearing neither a new slogan nor a basket full of gifts. But I do not come emptyhanded. I come with the promise of the Government and people of the United States to work with you...

4. Having received or acquired nothing
   • 1984, Field & Stream - Volume 89, page 26:

     Returning "emptyhanded" doesn't always mean that you didn't get what you set out for.

   • 1992, Husain Haddawy, ‎Muhsin Mahdi, ‎& Mahdi Mushin, The Arabian Nights, ISBN 0679413383, page 71:

     "Have you got anything, my dear? If you are emptyhanded, go emptyhanded." But the shopper said, "Sisters, stop teasing him, for by God, he served me well today; no one else would have been as patient with me. Whatever his share will come to, I shall pay for him myself.

   • 1987, Michel Tournier, The Golden Droplet, page 185:

     Antar neglected his boat and his nets for three days on end, and when, on the entreaties of his wife and children, he brought himself to go back to sea, he came back in the evening emptyhanded.

5. Having failed at a task.
   • 1972, The Economist - Volume 244, page 59:

     ...he promised to get concessions on container handling, and he cannot go to the dockers emptyhanded.

   • 1970, United States Congress House Select Committee on Small Business, Organization and Operation of the Small Business Administration (1970), page 75:

     We want to make them aware of all of the programs so these people don't go home emptyhanded. Many times they go home emptyhanded because the person has been trained with the tunnel vision where he is thinking only of the one program and is not aware of the other programs that exist, and this is what we have been doing this last year is trying to cross train our people and at least if nothing else have some communication.

6. Unarmed
   • 1999, Hephzibah Jesudasan, ‎G. John Samuel, & ‎P. Thiagarajan, Count-down from Solomon, Or, The Tamils Down the Ages Through Their Literature, ISBN 8187892021, page 211:

     ...for he has come on an ambassage and he has come emptyhanded (not armed).

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