Underhanded
adj, adv, noun, verb ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Devious people, collectively. plural, plural-only
"We have fallen to the underhanded and label it a greater means."
- 1 simple past and past participle of underhand form-of, participle, past
- 1 Done by moving the hand (and arm) from below.
"Golf is an underhanded game, because we must swing the club in an underhanded motion in order to play the ball off the ground."
- 2 Sly, dishonest, corrupt, cheating.
"His underhanded trick backfired and he was disqualified."
- 3 Insincere; sarcastic.
"An underhanded compliment is actually criticism."
- 4 Secret; surreptitious.
"And, although the mystery of an unsigned note rather thrilled her, it seemed underhanded. And June hated underhanded things."
- 5 Understaffed.
"Between 9.30, when the first shot was fired, and 11.45 a.m., the enemy, well aware of his vast superiority in men — the ' Intrepid,' being, as was usual with the Company's cruisers, underhanded — made two attempts to run her on board and throw an overpowering force on the brig's decks."
- 1 marked by deception wordnet
- 2 with hand brought forward and up from below shoulder level wordnet
- 1 In an underhanded manner.
"Bonino required each of us to shoot our free throws underhanded."
Example
More examples"There was a time when Christopher Columbus challenged another explorer to a duel. The latter, an underhanded chap, did not take ten steps - as dictated by the rules - but two, then turned around to shoot. Unfortunately for him, Columbus hadn't taken any steps at all."
Etymology
From under- + handed.
From underhand + -ed.
More for "underhanded"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.