Adjective : an offhand manner. ,offhand blowing. From Dictionary.com.
"I just wondered," Pam said with obvious offhandedness. From Wordnik.com. [Heaven's Price]
Their overdone casualness and offhandedness towards each other. From Wordnik.com. [The Lonely Sea]
The coldness of those words, the offhandedness, almost destroyed me. From Wordnik.com. [The only ones: Escaping near death] Reference
What starts the downward progress is immaterial, 'Frank would say, with his irritating offhandedness. From Wordnik.com. [The Hotel New Hampshire]
Is the offhandedness “something about the powdered sugar messes” evidence of calculation or carelessness?. From Wordnik.com. [Reader Response] Reference
The offhandedness, that slightly dismissive tone, the idea that food in fiction is a trend that will pass, pained me. From Wordnik.com. [Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » Food-centered fiction vs adding recipes for local color] Reference
Oh, not really, she says, such offhandedness, then adds, Though I have been seeing more of him than I expected, frankly. From Wordnik.com. [Hollywood Savage] Reference
In fact, an offhandedness, a sideways glance, and a sneer is nearly a mandatory reaction when the words white, male and southern are uttered in tandem. From Wordnik.com. [An Intolerance for Southern Culture - Warner_Todd_Huston’s blog - RedState] Reference
There is an interesting and almost funny offhandedness here: It would not have been surprising if she had picked up a rolling pin and beaned him with it. From Wordnik.com. [EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON] Reference
Regarding the offhandedness with which correspondence from residents is seemingly handled, am I the only one that thinks there is some high chutzpah here?. From Wordnik.com. [Sometimes Plainfield seems to be Newark writ small] Reference
Whatever the cast-off nature of the materials, the seeming offhandedness, and whatever the dominance of pure intuition, the man was surely a master builder. From Wordnik.com. [Underworld] Reference
Yet there is an offhandedness and ingrained antiaesthetic bent to Mr. Golub's approach, as if he is concerned more with his convoluted messages than with making a self-sustaining work of art. From Wordnik.com. [His Bark Is Worse Than His Bite] Reference
Haven Kimmel relates the odd and often unfortunate details of her life with such offhandedness, it is difficult to know how to read this story, and which of the characters to sympathize with. From Wordnik.com. [Reader reviews of A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel.] Reference
There is a certain irritating sort of journalist - perhaps unfairly, Zoe Williams of the Guardian is the first name that springs to mind - who affects an adolescent offhandedness in his of her writing. From Wordnik.com. [Simon Titley: Against jargon] Reference
The raised chin and the flurry of words made Holland smile privately, but when he was sure she had finished he merely added with an assumed offhandedness, “Well then, I could come along, if you like.”. From Wordnik.com. [The Blackstone Key] Reference
Dour he may have been, but the images of sullen teens, lonely crowds and desolate townscapes possess an energy and a visual rigor that belie what may at first be mistaken for offhandedness or carelessness. From Wordnik.com. [A Terrible Beauty] Reference
The overall goal is to make the poem look like it was dashed off easily - and Kooser admits ruefully that some of his detractors assume that his poems are - but that offhandedness is the product of painstaking attention to every syllable. From Wordnik.com. [Archive 2006-11-01] Reference
At first we are presented with the typical views of the war, the Iraqi people oppressed at the hands of the US who are shown with a degree of offhandedness, but there are moments to realise that they aren't against the Iraqi people and really are trying to work with them. From Wordnik.com. [Filmstalker Review: My Country, My Country] Reference
The immediate argument he gives for this unintuitive doctrine is brief to the point of offhandedness, merely challenging the reader to think otherwise without self-contradiction; his greater concern is to make it quite clear that this experience does not belong to any individual mind, and his doctrine not a form of solipsism. From Wordnik.com. [Francis Herbert Bradley] Reference
But she looked on with very wide-opened eyes, and this morning when Patricia answered with almost emphatic offhandedness that she had only been for a solitary walk in the rain, she could not refrain from remarking that she appeared to have gathered something more than raindrops and an appetite on her walk, and only laughed when. From Wordnik.com. [Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker] Reference
But he tossed ash from the end of his cigar to illustrate offhandedness. From Wordnik.com. [Guns of the Gods]
The brilliance he was already familiar with, the impecuniosity he inferred from the more than usual offhandedness of Rickman's manner. From Wordnik.com. [The Divine Fire] Reference
Even life's worst brutalities are related with an offhandedness of manner that makes you look for the joke that must be at the bottom of them. From Wordnik.com. [Pan] Reference
There was, of course, nothing blameworthy in their unacquaintanceship with the issues, but only in the offhandedness with which they belittled its consequences. From Wordnik.com. [The Inside Story of the Peace Conference] Reference
The offhandedness of "we'll just split up and settle on scattered continents AND send all our technology into the sun" seemed as lame and unrealistic as Starbuck being an corporeal angel. From Wordnik.com. [Brad Ideas - Comments] Reference
That explains some of Marius’s gruff offhandedness about this nephew by marriage!. From Wordnik.com. [The First Man in Rome]
Even life’s worst brutalities are related with an offhandedness of manner that makes you look for the joke that must be at the bottom of them. From Wordnik.com. [Knut Hamsun: From Hunger to Harvest] Reference
And part of it is that I need to become just expert enough in the area I’m writing about that I can tell a story in such a world plausibly and with realistic offhandedness. From Wordnik.com. [Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Joseph Finder, part 1] Reference
He could be fantasy’s tomorrow, too, if the offhandedness of the impossible transformations in “The Cuttlefish,” “The Centaur,” “The Excavation,” and “If I Leap” catches on. From Wordnik.com. [Reviews and Interview | Goblin Mercantile Exchange] Reference
She completed the sentence with the same offhandedness that had characterized Holland’s query about the steadiness of the barge, and for that reason its falsity was immediately apparent to him. From Wordnik.com. [The Mistaken Wife] Reference
Fur with out them, miny wood shoorely hab parishd buy now protek me frum the paine ov da world wit the promis of distraction bless da kittiehs, the cheezes and the lolfrendz, for with out them mai spirit wood waist awai sheild meh frum the cynical offhandedness dat fwrettins to devide us awl with this armour I shal go forf an smile at complete strangers, un afrayd of jugemint. From Wordnik.com. [Schrodinger’s cat - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?] Reference
And for all his offhandedness, he was impressed. From Wordnik.com. [THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK] Reference
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