What is "off-hand"

Usage examples of "off-hand".

Self-love and prejudice prevent a woman yielding till she has been assidiously courted, whereas I had asked her to share my bed in an off-hand manner, as if it were a mere matter of form.

Vladimir remarked with a deliberately off-hand carelessness and in gruff tones that he was going to the Rue de la Huchette, and set off as soon as he had finished eating.

Tellai, releasing his snugger with off-handed ease that showed he was beginning to learn the ropes and anxious to prove it.

Moreover there has been no off-hand, untimely destruction of the nectariferous blossoms of millions of trees and shrubs.

He had the bluest eyes Cody had ever seen, a ready sense of humor, and the ability to flay a student naked with a casual, sometimes off-hand comment.

Britton was unable to determine off-hand the species of the specimens I sent him, but you may know the sawfly larvae by their habit of collecting in a row like soldiers around the edge of the leaf and when the branch is disturbed, their heads and tails stand up.

Lady Southdown quite agreed in both proposals of her son-in-law, and was for converting Miss Crawley off-hand.

It was evident that Berks meant to finish the battle off-hand, whilst Jim, with two of the most experienced men in England to advise him, was quite aware that his correct tactics were to allow the ruffian to expend his strength and wind in vain.

They had, however, given notice to the worthy prelate of what was going on, in order that he might either come himself or send other exorcists as best suited him, so that a valid opinion as to the reality, of the possession might be procured, for up to the present the worldly and unbelieving had taken upon themselves to declare in an off-hand manner that the whole affair was a mixture of fraud and delusion, in contempt of the glory of God and the Catholic religion.

It seemed to me that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed in since to find one perfectly undesigning and candid man among many opposites could not fail to give him pleasure.

So saying, he skewed me in an off-hand way a bill of exchange on Rome for three thousand crowns.

Can you recall off-hand how many clocks there are in the sitting-room?

There was no way to fire the big gun off-hand which meant the sniper was raising himself up out of the scrape.

They were improvisators, and made up their ballads off-hand, with the quick, attentive chorus of the dancers joining in.

Living in a little world of sycophants, he was galled by the off-hand way in which Wally always treated him.