"High-handed"

What does it mean to be high-handed in attitude, action, or position? Thanks.

high-handed
using your authority in an unreasonable way
"She resented his high-handed manner." "high-handed and insensitive management decisions"
Extra dictionary examples:
"The company has a reputation for being high-handed in its treatment of clients."
Sentences from books, newspapers, etc.:
"But they will not understand a high-handed decision by the Florida Legislature to take the law into its own hands."
"His high-handed dismissal of an outspoken professor brought unwanted national attention to the struggling school."
"Mr Brown said the planned charges were the last straw for customers already angry over banks' high-handed attitude."
"Some treated their staff in a high-handed and tyrannical way."
"The high-handed way in which Washington dropped the idea on its Western partners accounts for some the hostile reaction it has received."
"Their attitude towards the masses was condescending, high-handed and ultimately dictatorial."
"These high-handed tactics were obviously risky, but they were a calculated risk."
From _Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, New Edition_

From the archives:

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, with a high hand is from the french phrase "Faire une chose haut la main."

However, google turned up several christian sites claiming the Hebrew for 'presumptuously' is "with a high hand," meaning open rebellion.

HIGH-HANDED -- Numbers 33:3 "And they departed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with an high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians." One reference says: in the Bible "the direct ancestor of this phrase means 'triumphantly.' It is used in describing the departure of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage..The description does suggest a certain amount of arrogance, however, and it is probably from this passage that 'high-handed' came, with the passage of time, to mean arrogant or overbearing." From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

FYI - a good Bible verse look-up site www.biblegateway.com/ cgi-bin/bible I had a little trouble because Mr. Hendrickson had the chapter number wrong.

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