hand-waving

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See also: handwaving, and hand waving

English

Noun

hand-waving (uncountable)

  1. Alternative spelling of hand waving
    • 2011 June 17, Andrew Brown, “Minds, brains and woo”, in The Guardian:
      So when we're discussing thought and conscious processes, talking about minds is precise, and even measurable (what else do public opinion pollsters do?) while talking about brains is just hand-waving.

Adjective

hand-waving (comparative more hand-waving, superlative most hand-waving)

  1. Alternative spelling of handwaving
    • 2001 January 15, Jeffrey Kluger, “Obesity”, in Time:
      For years much of this has been explained with hand-waving references to body types and metabolism—broadly accurate, but cold comfort to the estimated 61% of Americans who are overweight or obese and want to have their weight controlled, not merely explained.
    • 2018, Marcus Chown, Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand , Michael O'Mara Books, →ISBN:
      You, me and everything in the universe are holograms. This may seem very vague and hand-waving. However, in 1998, the Argentinean-American physicist Juan Maldacena published a paper that shored up the idea that we live in a ‘holographic universe’ and set the world of physics alight.

Verb

hand-waving

  1. present participle and gerund of hand-wave