handsel

plural handsels · alternative handsale · alternative handsell · alternative hansel

1. obsoleteA lucky omen.
2. A gift given at New Year, or at the start of some enterprise or new situation, meant to ensure good luck.

   their first good handsel of breath in this world

   1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI)

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   Our present tears here, not our present laughter, / Are but the handsels of our joys hereafter.

   1648, Robert Herrick, Hesperides

3. archaicPrice, payment; especially the first installment of a series.

   That whoso hardy hand on her doth lay , It dearly shall abye and death for handsel pay

   1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

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   "I see the first handsel that God gives them on their voyage to the Land of Promise; thirst and bitterness." (From Contemplations, Book Five, Contemplation 1, The Waters of Marah (Found in volume 1 of The Works of Joseph Hall, edited by Peter Hall, published by Talboys, Oxford, 1837, page 88))

   1612, Joseph Hall, Contemplations on the Historical Passages of the Old Testament

present singular third person handsels · US participle present handseling · UK participle present handselling · US participle past handseled · US past handseled · UK participle past handselled · UK past handselled · alternative handsale · alternative handsell · alternative hansel

1. transitiveTo give a handsel to.

   She would leave a gold guinea to hansel the baby.

   2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage, published 2003, page 55

2. transitiveTo inaugurate by means of some ceremony; to break in.

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   And it is better undecently to faile in hanseling the nuptiall bed, full of agitation and fits, by waiting for some or other fitter occasion, and more private opportunitie, lest sudden and alarmed, than to fall into a perpetuall miserie, by apprehending an astonishment and desperation of the first refusall.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC, page 42

3. transitiveTo use or do for the first time, especially so as to make fortunate or unfortunate; to try experimentally.

   […]the success of the one did not handsel usurpation[…]of the other's.

   1994, Michael Brodsky, ***, Four Walls Eight Windows, →ISBN, page 38

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   Indeed there is no contrivance of our body, but some good man in Scripture hath hanselled it with prayer.

   1647, Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Worse Times

   The lads, dressed like their papas, seemed uncomfortable in their new clothes (many that day handselled their first pair of boots), […].

   1886, Gustave Flaubert, chapter IV, in Eleanor Marx-Aveling, transl., Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners […], London: Vizetelly & Co., […], →OCLC, part I, page 28