left-handed compliment

Meaning: (idiomatic)Acomplimentaryremarkwhich isambiguousorineptlyworded, so that it may be interpreted as having anunflatteringordismissivesense.1921,E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 16, inNobody's Man:"We have sat through the whole of dinner and not once mentioned politics.""You made us forget them," Tallente murmured."Aleft-handed compliment," Jane laughed.1964October 30, “The Morning After”, inTime, retrieved7 October 2013:In a somewhatleft-handed compliment, UN Secretary-General U Thant described Russia's new bosses as "competent and unpretentious."2006March 19,David Orr, “On Poetry: Samuel Menashe—New and Selected Poems”, inNew York Times, retrieved7 October 2013:[C]alling someone a "neglected master" makes for one hell of aleft-handed compliment.

Examples:

EN: Where I come from, they call it a left-handed compliment.
ES: En mi tierra a eso lo llaman un cumplido a medias.
EN: See, a left-handed compliment from the woman of your dreams is like a shiv between the third and fourth rib that just misses your heart.
ES: Ves, un cumplido nada halagador de la mujer de tus sueños es como un cuchillo entre la tercera y cuarta costilla que es justo donde queda tu corazón.
EN: - Is that a left-handed compliment or just straight criticism?
ES: ¿Me estás elogiando o es una crítica embozada?
ID: Apakah itu pujian sinis atau kritik langsung?
EN: Two left feet, left-handed compliment. "What are we having for dinner?" "Leftovers."
ES: Dos pies izquierdos, cero a la izquierda levantarse con el pie izquierdo.
EN: Even when you give me the left-handed compliment
HI: कोई दिलबर तो हो बाँहोँ में तेरी
HI: जब अपनी बाहें घात करें
EN: Even as a left-handed compliment, I accept it.
HI: मैं तारीफ़ मानूँ, बयां करता जाऊँ. .
EN: left-handed ironically ambiguous, a left-handed compliment
HI: बायां हाथ अदब से सीधा तनकर झूलता
EN: Hold on. Your previous sentence... sounds like a left-handed compliment that I'm nosy.
ID: Tunggu, ucapanmu sebelumnya, seperti pujian berbalik yang menyebutku usil.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).