English

Alternative forms

• surehanded

Adjective

sure-handed

1. Dexterous; skilled and smooth at a manual task.
   • 2006, Bob Chandler & ‎Bill Swank, Bob Chandler's Tales from the San Diego Padres, ISBN 1596700246, page 142:

     It was so cold that the ball clanked off the glove of the usually sure-handed Reds infielder for an error.

   • 2012, Joanne Rock, Sliding Into Home, ISBN 1460824792:

     These guys are sure-handed and smooth, rarely dropping the ball on the field, but routinely doing so off it.

   • 2014, Bob Marchinetti, Pirate Gold: The 1960 Season, ISBN 1628383275, page 10:

     The Bucs committed a staggering 7 errors in the game, including 3 by the usually sure-handed Groat.

   • 2015, Jo Ann Ferguson, An Unexpected Husband: A Regency Romance, ISBN 1504009134:

     “My carriage is this way. My driver has not taken a blow to the skull, so he will be more sure-handed.”

2. Confident and skillful; practiced; expert.
   • 1861, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage:

     And till we can recover that, we shall never be able to have a Government firm-seated and sure-handed.

   • 2010, John A. Tracy, Profit Analysis for Business Managers, ISBN 1118006607:

     All managers having profit responsibility should have a sure-handed analytical grip on how changes in sales volume and sales prices impact their profit performance.

   • 2013, Iain Sharp, Heaphy: Artist, Explorer, Settler, ISBN 1869408047:

     While Heaphy was in the role of hawk-eyed, sure-handed, specimen-procuring guide, Hochstetter, Haast and their colleagues were delighted by him and quick to sing his praises.

3. Skillfully executed;
   • 2007, Joseph Hansen, The Complete Brandstetter, page 884:

     And the first days of it, he was going to give to bookshelves and pictures — those watercolors by Larry Johns he'd bought last year, nice, loose, sure-handed sketches of the surf, rocks, dunes around the handsome beach house Johns shared with Tom Owens.

   • 2014, Virgil Thomson & ‎Tim Page, Virgil Thomson: Music Chronicles 1940–1954, ISBN 1598533649:

     Neither his sure-handed scoring, however, almost too sure-handed for a young man of twenty-five who is going to be a real composer, nor the diffuse and improvisatory character of the composition inspires the confidence in Mr. Bernstein's original gifts that this reviewer entertains towards his genius as an executant and an interperter.

   • 2013, Leonard Maltin, Leonard Maltin's 2014 Movie Guide, ISBN 1101609559:

     Affleck's sure-handed direction of Chris Terrio's screenplay manages to shift seamlessly from incredible tension in Iran and internecine politics in Washington, D.C., to the absurdity of the scheme in Hollywood.