| Definitions | | handsel |
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noun
- A sale, gift, or delivery into the hand of another; especially, a sale, gift, delivery, or using which is the first of a series, and regarded as on omen for the rest; a first installment; an earnest; as the first money received for the sale of goods in the morning, the first money taken at a shop newly opened, the first present sent to a young woman on her wedding day, etc.
- Quotations
- Their first good of breath in this world. - Fuller
- Our present tears here, not our present laughter, Are but the handsels of our joys hereafter. - Herrick
- (obsolete) Price; payment - Spenser
Etymology: Old English handsal, hansal, hansel, Anglo Saxon handslen a giving into hands, or more probably from Icelandic handsal; hand hand + sal sale, bargain; akin to Anglo Saxon sellan to give, deliver. See sell, sale.
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