Definition of "emptyhanded"
emptyhanded
adjective
comparative more emptyhanded, superlative most emptyhanded
Quotations
If, for example, Oswald was not "emptyhanded" but, as the original reports had it, had been drinking a Coca-Cola — there was a vending machine in the lunchroom where the encounter occurred — then he almost certainly could not have left the sixth-floor window after firing the shots, hid the rifle on the sixth floor, run down to the second floor, entered the lunchroom, operated the machine, ...
1968, Mark Lane, A Citizen's Dissent: Mark Lane Replies, page 90
Impoverished, having no money or resources.
Quotations
As he walked about in the village, Isaac saw those inhabitants who had come to the Land emptyhanded and now own fields and vineyards and houses full of good things, not by virtue of observing the Torah and pious deeds, for the Biluim were free thinkers and their feet too are on the ground, but because they're Russians and I'm from Galicia, and even the one small village the Galicians put up fell to rack and ruin.
2002, S. Y. Agnon, Only Yesterday, page 62
Having received or acquired nothing
Quotations
"Have you got anything, my dear? If you are emptyhanded, go emptyhanded." But the shopper said, "Sisters, stop teasing him, for by God, he served me well today; no one else would have been as patient with me. Whatever his share will come to, I shall pay for him myself.
1992, Husain Haddawy, Muhsin Mahdi, Mahdi Mushin, The Arabian Nights, page 71
Having nothing to offer; unable to give what was promised.
Quotations
We want to make them aware of all of the programs so these people don't go home emptyhanded. Many times they go home emptyhanded because the person has been trained with the tunnel vision where he is thinking only of the one program and is not aware of the other programs that exist, and this is what we have been doing this last year is trying to cross train our people and at least if nothing else have some communication.
1970, United States Congress House Select Committee on Small Business, Organization and Operation of the Small Business Administration (1970), page 75