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Glite Dictionary
👋 Gesturing with hands 🤷 Not detailed 🤷 A vague explanation
hand-waving

hand-waving

8.3
Not careful or detailed when explaining, using vague claims without proof
  • adjective
  • /ˈhændˌweɪvɪŋ/
  • Informal
translation icon : impreciso
  • So I'm sort of approaching this problem from this more kind of hand waving perspective.

Examples

  • The professor's lecture was filled with hand-waving that left the students confused rather than informed.

  • Kinect is for hand-waving and yelling yourself hoarse trying to open your DVD drive.

    Blog text (5)

  • During the meeting, the committee's hand-waving arguments failed to convince anyone of the project's viability.

  • Many critiques noted that the report contained nothing but hand-waving instead of concrete data to support its claims.

Synonyms

conclusory
vshand-waving
  • Formal
1 8.7

Stating a conclusion without giving facts or reasons

uses vague, nonrigorous arguments rather than stating conclusions directly

Antonyms

detailed
353 3.7

Having many small parts or facts that you can see

rigorous
85 6.7

Being very strict and careful about rules and details

How Rigorous

rigorous
85 6.7
supported
2.0
plausible
129 7.2
hand-waving
  • Informal
8.3
unsupported
9 5.0

Surface Forms

hand-waving positive

Morphology

hand-waving = hand-wave (semi-transparent) = hand + wave + ing

The word is built transparently from hand-wave + -ing, but the modern sense is a metaphorical extension meaning superficial or unsupported rather than a literal action.

Etymology

Hand-waving comes from the simple picture of moving your hand in a wave to brush something aside. So a hand-waving explanation 'brushes aside' details and is not careful or detailed.