Lexic.us

Definition of Dead hand

1. Noun. Real property held inalienably (as by an ecclesiastical corporation).

2. Noun. The oppressive influence of past events or decisions.

Lexicographical Neighbors of Dead Hand

dead centre dead cert dead code dead donkey dead donkeys dead drop dead duck dead ducks dead end dead ends

dead fingers dead first dead foetus syndrome dead furrow dead giveaway dead hand (current term) dead hand of the past dead heat dead heats dead horse

dead ice dead in the water dead key dead keys dead language dead languages dead last dead leg dead letter dead letter office

Literary usage of Dead hand

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life by George Jacob Holyoake (1900)
"THE " dead hand" has destroyed the grace of many gifts, as when a man endows a church on the ... The doctrine is dead, but the dead hand cannot be lifted. ..."

2. Journal of Social Science by Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Frederick Stanley Root, American Social Science Association, Isaac Franklin Russell (1888)
"5- THE dead hand. BY HL WAYLAND, DD, OF PHILADELPHIA. (Read Sept. 5, 1889.) The question which I propose very briefly to discuss is, How far shall the men ..."

3. Notes and Queries by Martim de Albuquerque (1879)
"FOLK-LORE: RUBBING WITH A dead hand (5th 5. xi. 43. ... Mr. Roby relates how a female, sick of the small-pox, had this dead hand in bed with her every night ..."

4. Modern Philanthropy: A Study of Efficient Appealing and Giving by William Harvey Allen (1912)
"Likewise, the dead hand has piled up income so fast for the Sailors' Snug ... Without defending the dead hand I want to recall two facts: (1) that what is ..."

5. Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone, William Carey Jones (1915)
"Alienation in mortmain, in mortua manu (in dead-hand), is an alienation of lands or tenements to any corporation, sole or aggregate, ..."

6. The Early Church Form Ignatius to Augustine by George Hodges (1915)
"Then they brought against the bishop the accusation of the dead hand. ... Arsenius had certainly disappeared, and the accusers had the dead hand in then* ..."

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