idle-handed

Being idle-handed all day, he began to apply to what he considered the service of the kite some of his spare time, and found a new pleasure — a new object in life — in the old schoolboy game of sending up “runners” to the kite.

The Lair of the White Worm 2003

Keith, listless and idle-handed, sat in his favorite chair by the window.

Dawn 1894

There was no work at the winding-room Saturday afternoons, and it was on Saturday afternoon that Susan found Keith sitting idle-handed in his chair by the window in the living-room.

Dawn 1894

And Miss Maggie looked ill on the last evening of that holiday week when, at nine o'clock, Mr. Smith found her sitting idle-handed before the stove in the living-room.

Oh, Money! Money! 1894

Large streames of honnie and sweete nectar flowe, produces nothing, sits idle-handed and silent, rather than pander to the grosser tastes of the day.

A Biography of Edmund Spenser John W. Hales 1875

It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must look some day to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and indeed full surely will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper season; be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles, coming on him he knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly marked to get back what we give, even from the thing named inanimate nature.

Diana of the Crossways — Complete George Meredith 1868

It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must look some day to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and indeed full surely will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper season; be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles, coming on him he knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly marked to get back what we give, even from the thing named inanimate nature.

Diana of the Crossways — Volume 1 George Meredith 1868

It is otherwise in his case and a general fling at the sex we may deem pardonable, for doing as little harm to womankind as the stone of an urchin cast upon the bosom of mother Earth; though men must look some day to have it returned to them, which is a certainty; and indeed full surely will our idle-handed youngster too, in his riper season; be heard complaining of a strange assault of wanton missiles, coming on him he knows not whence; for we are all of us distinctly marked to get back what we give, even from the thing named inanimate nature.

Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith George Meredith 1868

Millions of men were gone in the dark, and their millions of wives couldn’t sit idle-handed and wait for daylight.

The Dollmaker Harriette Arnow 1954