hand-wringingn.adj.
/ˈhandˌrɪŋɪŋ/, U.S. /ˈhæn(d)ˌrɪŋɪŋ/ A. n.
Wringing of the hands, esp. in grief, despair, or anxiety; (more generally) the expression of such emotions; spec. the excessive or exaggerated display of distress or anguish over some (now usually social or moral) issue or concern.Apparently unattested between the late 14th and 19th centuries.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > sorrow or grief > lamentation or expression of grief > other manifestations of sorrow > [noun] > wringing of hands
hand-wringingc1330
wringinga1375
thrutchingc1540
c1300 Havelok (Laud) (1868) l. 235 Þer was sobbing, siking, and sor, Handes wringing.]
c1330 Seven Sages (Auch.) (1933) l. 1051 (MED) Þer he fond his emperice, Wiȝ lourand chere..Hond wringging and loude koupe [perh. read roupe], And here visage al biwope.
c1400 (?a1300) Kyng Alisaunder (Laud) (1952) l. 7970 (MED) Noman..Ne seiȝ neuere so mychel reuþe Of weep, of cry, of honde wryngyng.
1839 Dublin Univ. Mag. Jan. 52 All day hand-wringing, bosom-beating, sighing.
1890 Dublin Jrnl. Med. Sci. 89 123 Occasional outbursts occur, characterized by intense restlessness, hand-wringing, and great anxiety.
1900 Alaskan Mag. Nov. 377/1 There was hand-wringing and smiting of dark breasts. Sin could not be consoled in her great bereavement.
1948 Billboard 3 Jan. 39/3 Despite all the theatrical hand-wringing, it would appear that the current..[Broadway] session may turn out..to do better [than last year].
1970 K. Millett Sexual Politics vii. 330 His [sc. Norman Mailer's] hand-wringing over the ‘Womanization of America’.
1991 Daily Tel. 5 Jan. 13/3 Any debate would immediately be taken over by the hardline peaceniks and turned into a public display of handwringing.
2008 Ecologist July 90/1 The festival..was characterised by a lot of hand-wringing and fruitless wittering about environmental issues.
B. adj.
1. Of a person: that wrings his or her hands, esp. in grief, despair, or anxiety; (more generally) that expresses these emotions in any way. Cf. wring v. 3b.In recent use esp. with reference to (frequently exaggerated) despair expressed over social or moral concerns.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > emotion > suffering > sorrow or grief > lamentation or expression of grief > other manifestations of sorrow > [adjective] > wringing of hands
wringinga1225
hand-wringing1603
out-wrung1838
1603 T. Dekker 1603: Wonderfull Yeare sig. C3 You desolate hand-wringing widdowes.
1846 Gentleman's Mag. Dec. 574 The screaming, wailing, hand-wringing women who surround the recent dead.
1886 Nation 4 Feb. 106/1 He is like the leering, hissing, handwringing villain still popular in melodrama.
1951 Billboard 24 Nov. 14/3 The scripter failed to make him a person—only a neurotic hand-wringing and psyche-searching nut.
1971 J. Tomisch Genteel Endeavor iv. 83 Their complaints about the state of contemporary affairs were comprehensive enough so that..they seemed nothing but a group of hand-wringing reactionaries.
2000 St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch (Nexis) 1 Nov. b7 It has become a tradition of sorts for hand-wringing pundits to conclude each election cycle by deploring the sorry state of the American electorate.
2. Characterized or accompanied by (literal or figurative) hand-wringing.
ΚΠ
1937 Life 20 Dec. 30 A hip-wiggling, shoulder-swaying, hand-wringing, sideways shove of which the chief feature is that arms and feet move in opposite directions.
1956 Rep. 41st National Conf. Weights & Measures (U.S. Dept. of Commerce) 104 But I don't want to close on a hand-wringing note. The very chaos that seems to lie just ahead has brought in some allies.
1971 Bull. Atomic Scientists Apr. 9/3 The tendency..may be to retreat into hand-wringing impotence..rather than to search for imaginative alternatives.
1991–2 Opera Q. Winter iv. 113 The actors..perform with determined gusto, though their exaggerated hand-wringing gestures at times look as if they belong in the silent-movie era.
2010 Church Times 1 Jan. 29/1 A hand-wringing report to the General Synod.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2013; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.c1330