handwaving

See also: hand-waving and hand waving

English

WOTD – 19 June 2011

Etymology

hand +‎ waving

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhandweɪvɪŋ/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Adjective

handwaving (comparative more handwaving, superlative most handwaving)

1. (not comparable) Waving the hands.
2. Pertaining to empty gesturing, with little substance behind it; vague; not supported by data.

Translations

waving the hands

• Arabic: تَلْوِيح بِالْيَد m (talwīḥ bi-l-yad)
• Finnish: käsiään heiluttava
• Norwegian: gestikulerende

Noun

handwaving (countable and uncountable, plural handwavings)

1. (chiefly figuratively) Alternative spelling of hand waving (“empty gesturing”)
   • 2009 November 3, “Squid Business”, in The Economist:

     McClatchy goes on to try and level a damning critique, which amounts to a lot of handwaving about things we already know.

   • 2017, Torkel Franzén, Inexhaustibility: A Non-Exhaustive Treatment, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 6:

     If one looks today at the logical literature, one finds that there is a great deal of handwaving going on of the same kind as that used by Gödel in his paper. That is, informal arguments are given to show that a formalization of a certain statement is formally provable in a certain theory.

Verb

handwaving

1. present participle and gerund of handwave

Related terms

• handwave
• hand waving
• handwavium
• handwavy
• wave of the hand