hardhanded

adj

1. Forceful, excessive, draconian, or abusive.

   “'Tis the cruel gripe, / That lean hard-handed poverty inflicts, / The hope of better things, the chance to win, / The wiſh to ſhine, the thirſt to be amus'd, / That at the found of Winter's hoary wing, / Unpeople all our counties, of ſuch herds, / Of flutt'ring, loit'ring, cringing, begging, looſe, / And wanton vagrants, as make London, vaſt / And boundless as it is, a crowded coop.”

   “To deliver out of that Egyptian bondage to Wretchedness, and Ignorance, and Sin, the hardhanded millions”

   “Martin Van Buren—plain, republican, hardhanded-democratic-locofoco Martin Van Buren—has [the East Room] now garnished with gold framed mirrors 'as big as a barn door,'”

   “He's a hard man, hardhanded, hard-hearted, he doesn't strike me.”

2. Working-class; having hands hardened from labor.

   “To deliver out of that Egyptian bondage to Wretchedness, and Ignorance, and Sin, the hardhanded millions, of whom this hardhanded, earnest witness, and writer, is here representative.”

   “One reason why Peter Quince and his actors make such a fine mess of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe is they are 'Hardhanded men that work in Athens here'.”

   “All experience proves that capital invariably secures the lion's share of the products and profits of hardhanded industry.”