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Use offhand in a sentence

Definition of offhand:

  • (adjective) with little or no preparation or forethought;
  • (adjective) casually thoughtless or inconsiderate; "an offhand manner"; "she treated most men with offhand contempt"
  • (adverb) without previous thought or preparation; "couldn't give the figures offhand";
  • (adverb) in a casually inconsiderate manner;

Sentence Examples:

"Oh, he is probably up to some devilry with some fool of a girl," he said in an offhand tone.

He replied with such offhand promptitude that I was certain the answer would have been the same had I asked him if he was a dromedary.

I made my way down the stream, little elated at my solution of what at first had seemed a mystery, for I felt that Nick would have told me offhand all about it.

He knew in the dark every twist in the road, every sharp turn, and he could tell you offhand what every sharp turn had cost him in the past month, either in repairs to his own car or to the car that had unluckily met him without warning.

Perhaps the best offhand description of Washington in these later days is that given by an English actor, Bernard, who happened to be driving near Mount Vernon when a carriage containing a man and a woman was upset.

"Good morning, fellows," he called, briskly, with an offhand attempt at geniality.

If Huerta gave in to us, he would have all the Mexican people against him, and he'd only fall into the hands of the rebels, who would take huge delight in killing him offhand.

The main burden of his editorials was the greatness of Henry Clay, and the beauties of a protective tariff, his material being largely drawn from a book he had published some years before; and, on account of the usual form of his arguments, he was generally referred to, in the offhand Western way, as ''Old Statistics.''

They were in a great hurry, too, to get him under the yoke, he thought; but they should find that a soldier on his way to the maneuvers is not to be betrothed and married offhand.

This quality should not be confounded, as it often is, with mere offhand decision based upon prejudices or whimsies.

These radiating lines, too, may be used in the few cases where the forger is an expert penman depending upon an offhand duplication of a signature.

My position was cramped and out of balance for offhand shooting; but I did my best, and heard the loud plunk of the hit.

Hundreds of milliards of francs were operated with by eminent publicists in an offhand manner that astonished the survivor of the expiring budgetary epoch and rejoiced the hearts of the Western taxpayers.

Lydgate was as polite as he could be in his offhand way, but politeness in a man who has placed you at a disadvantage is only an additional exasperation, especially if he happens to have been an object of dislike beforehand.

His manner was assertively offhand, and George did not ask him to sit down.

Consequently, this sudden development of capacity on the part of the poet is liable to take him unprepared, and the mere apparition of a poet who can add up a pounds shillings and pence column offhand might well induce apoplexy.

With a commanding presence, handsome face, an agreeable, permeating voice, a natural offhand manner, and something to say, she was at once a decided favorite, and travelled great distances to meet her engagements.

He spat this all out in the offhand insolent manner of the Prussian official.

It may be said offhand that even the complete appearance of depth such as the stereoscope offers would be in no way contradictory to the idea of moving pictures.

If Lucien was surprised at the apt wit and the subtlety with which these gentlemen formulated their replies, he felt bewildered with epigram and repartee, and, most of all, by their offhand way of talking and their ease of manner.

Without meaning to pun, we may dismiss the claims of palmistry offhand.

One of them, a scoutmaster as Pee-wee knew, was particularly offhand and jovial and seemed to fill the room with his breezy talk.

He greeted the young cowboy in an offhand way, taking the attitude of being so engrossed with cooking that he could not pay great attention to a stray horseman just then.

And here she ups and marries offhand this two-fisted young hick who turns out to be bad inside.

It was impossible to say offhand what day it was, but after a slight argument they arrived at the astounding discovery that it was indeed Saturday.

Probably it has been already ascertained that the male relatives have gone on a hunting or fishing expedition, but to make assurance doubly sure one or two of the party advance toward the women unarmed and make inquiries hi an offhand way.

A short time after receiving this last letter Angela was reading the news from an evening paper to Madame Bernard, translating the paragraphs offhand into French, by force of habit, because her old governess had often made her do it for practice.

There is no doubt that hypnotism is a complex state which cannot be explained in an offhand way in a sentence or two.

It always seemed to him, as indeed it seemed to others, that Tom's cheery, simple, offhand talk bespoke a knowledge of many things which he did not express.

I did not like to undertake myself the responsibility of advising or suggesting, so I simply said: "I cannot venture to say, offhand, what would be the most acceptable way of showing your great kindness and generosity, but I should certainly recommend you to put yourself in communication with the dean."

We who have had it seldom hear the question raised; we might be a little nonplussed to answer it offhand.

He apologized and plied me with the same sort of questions; I gave him the same sort of offhand answers that I had given Schroeder, and then I asked him what it was all about, and I told him about Schroeder without mentioning names.

He had endured this state of affairs for some time simply because the woman did the essential work in her offhand, slapdash style, and left him unmolested to his brooding as long as he did not interfere with her ideas of domestic economy.

I mumbled something vaguely dutiful, and began to dress as quickly as I could; but the more I thought of it, the more I felt that I hadn't been fairly treated, to be disposed of in such an offhand way.

"You condemn me offhand for a faddist?"

I own that I was half amused and half awed by the condescending bow with which he greeted my offhand nod and the affable way in which he remarked: "You are making use of your prerogatives as a member of the police, I see."

I had even seen him more than once on the avenue, but I had never before been brought face to face with him, and consequently had much too superficial a knowledge of his countenance to determine offhand whether the uneasy light in his small gray eyes was natural to them, or simply the result of present excitement.

The question surprised me, and I was not prepared to give, offhand, a definition of simony.

The invitation was given with an offhand cordiality decidedly prepossessing.

He was not, however, so far in advance of them but that the others could hear quite distinctly his offhand introduction of their party on the threshold, and the somewhat lukewarm response of the inmates.

And what Briton can read without enjoyment the works of James, so admirable for terseness; and the playful humor and dazzling offhand lightness of Ainsworth?

Bob admired him openly and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.

The worst of them all, the Mott Street Barracks, were taken into court by the owner; but all the judges and juries in the land had no power to put them back when it was decided upon a technicality that they should not have been destroyed offhand.

Apparently Thomas himself was not to be killed offhand: the jolting journey was continuing interminably.

It was not to be supposed that in the darkness the Comanches below would grasp the situation offhand, and, before they could do so, Dinah scurried over the peak of the roof to the scuttle, which of course was still open, and descended.

Nobs and nabobs (at least on the stage) disinherit daughters offhand for marrying grocers, and groan over sons who take to high art.

"You certainly dispose of Paul's case in a cool, offhand way; but how about the 'Philippian jailer'?"

He had a smattering of more tongues than he could have counted offhand, and it was hard to place these scattered words among any one speech.

This difficult man was not the kind to unbuckle offhand.

And the blithe and offhand way in which this ragamuffin declined his check only seemed to confirm his belief that he was playing for higher stakes.

She is still regarded not as an employee to be discharged offhand for incompetency but as a pupil to be instructed and assisted on into competency.

Robinson was largely discounting his ingenuous frankness, and was really taking his profession of failure, which, as it happened, he had thrown out in an offhand way, as rather affectation than literal truth.

Probably most Americans, if asked to explain the relevancy of the title of Emerson's poem 'Guy,' would be unable to answer offhand.

The world could not afford to despise its contents; they could not brand its author offhand as a clever dreamer or a foolish amateur, or consign him to the dreaded English limbo of the 'mere theorist.'

A far greater number of its victims than the offhand moralist is inclined to concede have admirable sturdiness of will and dogged persistence.

He had a breezy, offhand, impetuous manner, evidently only bridled in by rigorous training to decorous forms, and he stood six feet one inch in his stockings, taller now by one inch more in his boots, which the old servant had helped him to draw on.

Hunt obtrudes himself too frequently in a breezy, offhand manner.

Hilary's relics, away with them: his authority is not sufficient to deprive us of the liberty of contradicting him; but generally and offhand to condemn all suchlike stories, seems to me a singular impudence.

Then with animated eyes she bowed and smiled as Helen, who was spokesman for the group, began to introduce each one of the Pioneers in turn, in an offhand, half quizzing way that relieved the formality of the ceremony.

The extreme cases at either end of the scale can be adjudged offhand by ordinary common sense.

She went forward, therefore, and threw her arms about him with the same offhand, unsentimental pleasure which she would have shown in meeting him after a brief absence at any time.

I can sit down and construct offhand a fly to be used as wet or submerged that I feel sure I can use with as much success as with the miller, gnat, or any other fly that is no doubt much on the order of an imitation of the natural.

It had taken Laura almost two hours to compose it, some days before, and fully another hour to commit it to memory, but she sang it now in an offhand, haphazard way that led the girls to suppose that she was making it up as she went along.

After a few animating remarks from the Chairman, he introduced George Woodman, Esq., of Boston, who made a very pertinent and witty offhand speech, which was frequently interrupted by the spontaneous plaudits of the audience.

It is not very easy to give a complete impression offhand of such a multiform personage as this.

There are, therefore, no grounds for assuming offhand that he is of the nerveless type that faints at the first sight of blood; yet he writes of war with a shudder that the reader can feel in every line.

There was not an eddy, a cross-current, a deepening or a shoaling of all its waters for fifty miles that he could not have told you, offhand.

If that were so, he decided offhand that he would leave this little man promptly; for, though his position was critical, and arrest stared him in the face at any moment, Jack was not the one to lend himself to dishonesty.

Boyish and offhand to a certain extent, the solid foundation of womanliness in her nature was never far below the surface.

As we are considering new food factors it is manifestly unwise to judge them by old standards, and to decide offhand that they cannot possess such a high degree of nutritive power.

A bluff, offhand manner covered a very warm and tender nature, as the brown freckles covered his clear skin, until the original tints had to be guessed at.

The possession of arms by civilians was strictly forbidden, and any man found in the streets with a revolver was liable to be shot offhand by Austrian soldiers or Ukrainian gendarmes.

This is as much as can be stated precisely offhand concerning the said tariffs, an analysis of which, article by article, it would be very difficult to get, seeing that there are no statistics of the real importations.

He did not know how many pebbles he'd flicked from the upended pickle keg through the knothole and into the woodshed, but offhand he guessed there were at least four bushels, and he didn't even want to think about another one.

None knew better than he that the occurrence would stir up matters among the Indians on the other side, and he would have been a zany to invite a return shot by remaining a fair view to those who would investigate the matter offhand.

Apart from this, it will not be quite so easy to settle offhand the matter you have entrusted to me, but I promise that I shall not fail to take the proper steps, and I hope to send you satisfactory news within twelve days or a fortnight.

These offhand observations come pretty near to epitomizing the several salient ideas that have been crystallizing in the mind of the American sailor in the course of his year or more of active service in the war.

She would come away saying one must never expect gratitude, and be very good to them all the same, and very pleased with herself for not being repelled by their peculiar offhand manners and want of deference.

He was fascinated by the frank and childish egoism of the actor and enjoyed firing him with the plots of the Greek tragedies and as many of the Latin comedies as he could remember offhand.

I calculated offhand that if the war lasted three years longer it still would be over before he could complete his rounds of all the camps and all the ships and all the rest billets and bases and hospitals and lines of communication, and so on.

Give each other an honest kiss, like betrothed lovers as you are; and if you are wise, you will be married offhand.

She evinced much interest in the plans that her mother and Elise made and re-made, discarded and revised for the social campaign of the next winter, and many lively and original suggestions did she make offhand and unasked.

The description is incomplete, but I doubt if one English or German child out of a hundred, of a like age, could have given offhand as good a one.

And though she accepted in an offhand fashion the toys Challis had chosen with such love and interest, she kept up an inexplicably warlike attitude towards her, and deprecated her on every possible occasion.

He could only see that both men were fully equipped with dungarees, helmets, and even chutes fastened to their backs; which combination was an effectual disguise, since their best friends might have failed to recognize either of them offhand.

From long practice in applying the aids the thorough horseman can use hands and legs without conscious thought, and he would often find it difficult to say offhand what he had done under certain conditions.

No man could have made offhand remarks in such a crisp, concise and epigrammatic style.

As I drank one tumbler of water after another, I fancied the young lady watched me curiously; however, I had scarce quenched my thirst when my own ideas got clear enough, as well as my tongue, to give an offhand account of what had happened.

If there be such people among my readers, which I consider unlikely, I may dismiss them offhand with the remark that they will never become successful astrologers, for the first word of practical astrology is Utility.

His majesty must see that the affront I have suffered is not to be expiated by an offhand return of my sword, and I refuse to accept it.

If I confessed myself unable to translate this wholesale order offhand into current Parisian, Madame would denounce me as an impostor on the spot.

They never quite dared to murder a Frenchman offhand.

The Chinese did things in their own formal but offhand manner; the Nationalist party carried on information functions for the Chinese government, while the Communist guerrilla authorities carried on functions for the Communist party.

It is easy to see that this was a grave, constitutional, legal, and historical problem not to be solved offhand by vehement citations from Scripture, nor by pragmatical dissertations from the lips of foreign ambassadors.

"Tip-top," Ware, as he replied offhand about the broken limb, regarded the girl with a bright and tender approval.

Arthur Pomeroy, who, as captain, kept watch over what was happening to others of his force while fighting his own battle, saw that his side was in immediate peril of being vanquished offhand, and called loudly to Edgar to resume the combat.

Moreover, if we consented, he could make certain that we should never be able to repudiate the promise as having been made under compulsion, by calling in a priest and having the ceremony performed offhand.

She asked him now, in her alertly offhand way, to stay to dinner.

She was, despite her talk of offhand summer informality, clad in an impressive costume with a great deal of lace and the shimmer of flowered silk.

All this tends, no doubt, to an ugly, offhand manner, a disregard of the claims of mere intellectual superiority and spiritual beauty, and a crudity of outlook.