Handly

adj

adj ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Synonym of handy. not-comparable, rare

    "George W. Greene's " Short History of Rhode Island" (1877) is a handly manual but nothing more."

  2. 2
    Of or pertaining to the hand; manual. not-comparable, obsolete

    "The word handly has no asterisk because it is in fact recorded several times in Middle English, and with precisely the meaning 'manual'."

Synonyms

All synonyms
handymanualmanual

Example

More examples

"George W. Greene's " Short History of Rhode Island" (1877) is a handly manual but nothing more."

Etymology

From Middle English handly, handliche; equivalent to hand + -ly. Compare German handlich (“handy, manageable”), Swedish handlig (“handy”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.