hand-me-down

plural hand-me-downs · alternative dated hand-me-on

1. An item that is passed along for someone else to use.

   But these routes have always had hand-me-downs that aren't really designed for the job.

   2023 November 29, Paul Clifton, “West is best in the Highlands”, in RAIL, number 997, page 61

   1 more example

   Well, I'm willing, I'm able, I'm practically much alive / Well, I'm six-feet-tall, I ain't no hand-me-down

   1948, Roy Brown, “Mighty Mighty Man”

2. especiallyA piece of clothing or other item which has been outgrown by an older sibling and passed down to a younger one.

alternative dated hand-me-on

1. not comparableUsed or second-hand, passed along by its prior user.

   1983, 19th of March, Presidential Radio Address by Ronald Reagan I don't want America's recovery and security to be sacrificed on an altar of discredited hand-me-down theories. And if you'll help us, they won't be.

   2 more examples

   And what costume shall the poor girl wear / To all tomorrow's parties? / A hand-me-down dress from who knows where

   1967, Lou Reed, “All Tomorrow's Parties”, in The Velvet Underground & Nico, performed by The Velvet Underground

   The old Pacers have vanished, replaced by a mix of hand-me-down fleets.

   2022 November 2, Paul Bigland, “New trains, old trains, and splendid scenery”, in RAIL, number 969, page 58

present singular third person hand-me-downs · participle present hand-me-downing · participle past hand-me-downed · past hand-me-downed · alternative dated hand-me-on

1. rareTo pass along to someone else.

   He could not change the past but he was determined that he would not follow in the grand family hand-me-downed legacy.

   2012, Lee Beck, From a Dark Place, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 442

   5 more examples

   “See into life, don’t just look at it” is her [Anne Baxter’s] creditable credo, hand-me-downed from her famous architect grandfather, the late Frank Lloyd Wright.

   1963, Cleveland Amory, Earl Blackwell, editors, Celebrity Register: An Irreverent Compendium of American Quotable Notables, Harper & Row, page 40

   The carpet was a montage of fade and unfade indicating that when new it had been used in another office—probably Mr. Barlowe’s—and then hand-me-downed when the decorators had cut loose.

   1966, Mike Cohen, The Bright Young Man, J. B. Lippincott Company, page 27

   The traditional family was poorly adapted to consumption: its raison d’être was rooted in sharing, hand-me-downing, and cooperative endeavor.

   1990, Jan E. Dizard, Howard Gadlin, The Minimal Family, The University of Massachusetts Press, →ISBN, page 41

   He had scraped together the funds to traipse off to the latest Bonanza camp, to buy speculative stocks, liquor and fine Sacramento meals for his boomer friends and fancy women, while my mother cut pieces of cardboard and canvas into soles to stuff inside our shoes to stop the holes, and hand-me-downed our clothes.

   1998, Oakley M. Hall, Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades: A Mystery Novel, Berkeley, Calif.; Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 124

   The first thing Gabe saw as they pulled close was the flashing lights of Ruleton’s two police cruisers parked off to the side of the road—the new one Sheriff Dodd’s, the humble other the battered black-and-white that he’d hand-me-downed to his deputy, Ralph Simpson.

   2006, Tom Bailey, Cotton Song, Shaye Areheart Books, →ISBN, page 283