Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Characterized by nonintervention.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Tending not to intervene

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not involving participation or intervention

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The old guard, the hands-off crowd, started giving way to the younger senators, and to a new idea that while these agencies are essential to our security and must operate in secret, they must also operate under the law and make themselves accountable to the legislative branch and the courts.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • The old guard, the hands-off crowd, started giving way to the younger senators, and to a new idea that while these agencies are essential to our security and must operate in secret, they must also operate under the law and make themselves accountable to the legislative branch and the courts.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • The old guard, the hands-off crowd, started giving way to the younger senators, and to a new idea that while these agencies are essential to our security and must operate in secret, they must also operate under the law and make themselves accountable to the legislative branch and the courts.

    The Good Fight Walter F. Mondale 2010

  • Everyone starts laughing at the thought of a hands-off healer being an air healer.

    The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010

  • And the cost of that hands-off, high-flying quality in the Kimball case is unbearable.

    Anne Butterfield: AG for Reelection: Grandstanding and Carelessness for Colorado Anne Butterfield 2010

  • (The feds have adopted a mostly hands-off policy, though they occasionally swoop in to make an example-setting arrest, like that of the comedian and stoner icon Tommy Chong, in 2003, for running a head shop.)

    Cannabusiness 2009

  • The same cautious hands-off approach applied to Yemen, whose role as a new base for al-Qaeda was highlighted after a failed attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009.

    Zero-Sum Future Gideon Rachman 2011

  • It's all done in the name of protecting its citizens, but I wonder if left alone there would actually be more deaths and violence with a 'hands-off' approach than there currently is with the full-on drug war.

    Gun Trafficking and the Southwest Border 2009

  • And how does this ‘hands-off’ government square with your earlier crowing about the 13th Amendment … seems we had to get pretty hands on to get that one passed and enforced.

    Think Progress » Steele on serving as RNC chair: God has ‘placed me here for a reason.’ 2010

  • But his housing policies and hands-off approach to regulation encouraged lax lending standards.

    Think Progress » Wall Street Bankers And Investors Fund New Media Platform For Gov. Bob McDonnell’s SOTU Response 2010

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