hand waving

See also: handwaving and hand-waving

English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Noun

hand waving (plural hand wavings)

  1. (idiomatic) Discussion or argumentation involving approximation, vagueness, educated guessing, or the attempt to explain or excuse vagaries.
    The sales pitch sounded good, but there was a lot of hand waving about the price.
    • 2000 August 21, “letter”, in Time:
      Protesters who demand that this brilliantly humane enterprise be stopped should have their motives questioned. Their protest is nothing but the mindless hand waving of Luddites.

Derived terms

Translations

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.