"Backhanded" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with eyes opened to their utmost width, made a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the right forefinger in the air, as if he were resolved on negativing beforehand everything that the other could possibly advance during the ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... who take care of them, they being passive recipients. If it were said that children are themselves marvelously endowed with power to enlist the cooperative attention of others, this would be thought to be a backhanded way of saying that others are marvelously attentive to the needs of children. But observation shows that children are gifted with an equipment of the first order for social intercourse. Few grown-up persons retain all of the flexible and sensitive ability of children ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... backhanded blow over his right shoulder, which he thinks caught the burglar in the face; but the fellow caught him by the elbow, and gave his arm such a twist that he dropped the truncheon on ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... his enemy was there still. He had got clear of the gate, but seemed in much pain, for he lay tearing up the grass and sod in handfuls. When Clare stooped to ask what he should do for him, he struck him a backhanded blow on the face that knocked him over. Clare ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... him across the mouth with a backhanded blow that snapped his head back on his shoulders and ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin |
