at second hand

Idioms  

1. Received from some source other than the original. For example, I learned of Mary's divorce at second hand. This phrase may be applied to information or to previously owned merchandise. [1400s] Also see at first hand.

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Example Sentences

Spiegelman gingerly unpacks the title poem from that book, calling it “autobiographical, perhaps at second hand, but not revelatory.”

From Washington Post

My new self, while it grew up in the shadow of the old, had often heard the other speak of Albertine; through that other self, through the stories it gathered from it, it thought that it knew her, it found her lovable, it loved her; but it was only a love at second hand.

From Salon

“We don’t run much into clerks, because there’s only one Jaggers, and people won’t have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would you like to see ’em?

From Literature

“It is out of books,” he wrote in “Travels With My Aunt,” that “one learns about love and pain at second hand.”

From New York Times

Here you have it, as far as I know there is no colourist who comes so straight and directly from Delacroix; and yet it is likely, in my opinion, that Monticelli only had Delacroix’s colour theories at second hand; in particular he had them from Diaz and Ziem.

From The Guardian