2. Insufficiently provided with hands or workers; short-handed; sparsely populated; obsolete in this sense, short-handed or understaffed being the preferrred term. [ 1913 Webster +JG ]
Norway . . . might defy the world, . . . but it is much underhanded now. Coleridge. [ 1913 Webster ]
(adv) slyly and secretly; - John Donne; - C.G.Bowers, Syn. underhand, Example:Mean revenge, committed underhand; oldline aristocratic diplomats underhandedly undermined the attempt...to align Germany with the Western democracies