Empty-handed means bringing or taking away nothing. Arrive empty-handed.
Arriving empty-handed at a dinner is a small crime in most cultures. Coming away empty-handed after long effort is the harder sense of the two.
1adjectiveempty-handedBringing or taking away nothing.
“They went home empty-handed after eleven hours of fishing.”
empty-handed is a quality.
emptyhanded comes from empty + handed.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA