Meaning of swift-handed | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Characterized by quick, skillful movements of the hands.
2. Quick to respond or react.

Examples

“Then as they fought on foot, fast and fiercely with their swords, Tristrem, being sorely wounded in the thigh, grew well-nigh mad with pain, and with one swift-handed heavy stroke cleft Moraunt's helmet to his skull, breaking the sword-point in his brain.”

“Indeed, so swift-handed was Arjuna that the spectators could not perceive any interval between his taking up an arrow, and fixing it on the bow-string, and letting it off by a stretch⟳ of the Gāndiva!”

“If tiles are needed up on a roof, they are thrown three or four at a time, and caught by a worker standing on the roof. Both the thrower and the catcher must be swift-handed, otherwise the tiles will not remain⟳ whole.”

“But, in the simple questions submitted to the Peruvian judge⟳, delay⟳ would have⟳ been useless; and the Spaniards, familiar with the evils growing out of long-protracted suits, where the successful litigant is too often a ruined man, are loud in their encomiums of this swift-handed and economical justice.”

“So, in this country, corruption or maladministration in judicial procedure would be followed by swift-handed retribution”

“Thanks to the pathological manner in which nationalist nonsense has alienated and continues to alienate the people of Europe from each other; thanks as well to the short-sighted and swift-handed politicians who have⟳ risen to the top with the help⟳ of this nonsense, and have⟳ no idea of the extent to which the politics of dissolution that they practice and only be entr'acte politics, -- thanks to all this and to some sign⟳ that are strictly unmentionable today, the most unambiguous signs declaring that Europe wants to be one are either overlooked or willfully and mendaciously reinterpreted”

CEFR level