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

Let's in, and handsel our new mansion-house With a carousing round of Spanish wine.

From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 8 by Hazlitt, William Carew

And now by such illumination, jubilee, dancing and fire-working, do we joyously handsel the new Social Edifice, and first raise heat and reek there, in the name of Hope.

From The French Revolution by Carlyle, Thomas

Under the name of handsel to Pius IX., the Catholic press opened subscription lists.

From Pius IX. And His Time by Dawson, Æneas MacDonell

Mighty pretty handsel for the Red Cow, my lambkin!

From John Bull The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts by Colman, George

"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

Bethink thee of the net they handselled for thee!

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

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

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

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

The Britons rode hardly upon them, doing them all the mischief they might, for they were passing wroth to see their comrades handselled so despitefully.

From Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut by Mason, Eugene

"Ah," he exclaimed, "I have handselled this time at any rate."

From Marguerite de Valois by Dumas père, Alexandre

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