handsel

American  

[han-suhl] / ˈhæn səl /

Or hansel

noun

1. a gift or token for good luck or as an expression of good wishes, as at the beginning of the new year or when entering upon a new situation or enterprise.

2. Rare. a first installment of payment.

3. Rare. the initial experience of anything; first encounter with or use of something taken as a token of what will follow; foretaste.

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verb (used with object)

handseled, handseling, handselled, handselling

1. to give (someone) a gift for good luck or as an expression of good wishes, especially at the beginning of the new year or the launch of a new enterprise..

2. Older Use. to inaugurate auspiciously.

3. Older Use. to use, try, or experience for the first time.

handsel British  

/ ˈhænsəl /

noun

1. a gift for good luck at the beginning of a new year, new venture, etc

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verb

1. to give a handsel to (a person)

2. to begin (a venture) with ceremony; inaugurate

Other Word Forms

• unhandseled
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of handsel

First recorded before 1050; Middle English handselne “good-luck token, good-will gift,” Old English handselen “manumission,” literally “hand-gift” ( see hand, sell ¹); cognate with Danish handsel, “earnest money.” The Middle English word was influenced by Old Norse handsal “handshake, handclasp (for sealing a purchase or a promise)”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

handsel handseled handselled handselling

Aleman, Cervantes, Lesage, Defoe and Fielding were inspired to imitation, and today Lazarillo is acclaimed as the prototype of the picaresque novel, as a handsel of the arriving era of realism in European literature.

From Time Magazine Archive

After five minutes she went away from him, as she walked putting away in her stocking the earned money, on which, as on the first handsel, she had first spat, after a superstitious custom.

From Yama: the pit by Guerney, Bernard Guilbert

“Here is handsel for your engagement,” he said.

From Athelstane Ford by Upward, Allen

They sang a doggerel rhyme, and the form in which money was asked was, "Please to handsel the Lord and Lady's purse."

From Miscellanea by Ewing, Juliana Horatia Gatty

Here is your handsel; your aunt will only have to bring you to-morrow night.'

From Mysteries of Paris — Volume 02 by Sue, Eugène

"Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest nations handseled with the blood of their founders."

From Remember the Alamo by Barr, Amelia Edith Huddleston

The full moon handselled with the stars the teeth, like grains of      pearl, That on the laughing face of wine now dance, now      stirless lie.

From The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Volume III by Payne, John

And now this settlement and atonement was handselled and was well kept afterwards.

From The Story of Burnt Njal: the great Icelandic tribune, jurist, and counsellor by Unknown

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

From The House of Atreus by Morshead, E. D. A. (Edmund Doidge Anderson)

Harry'll like it none the worse for my having handselled it.'

From The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories by Gissing, George

She handselled it, and hastening where he lay, cried in furious fashion, "You are unbound already."

From French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by France, Marie de

Mary, who is handselling her new aerial perspectives upon a pair of old worsted stockings trod out in Cheshunt lanes, sends love.

From The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6 Letters 1821-1842 by Lamb, Mary

So now he gave forth the handselling grandly with open mouth, and this is the beginning thereof.

From The Story of Grettir the Strong by Morris, William