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Handsel   Listen
noun
Handsel  n.  (Written also hansel)  
1.
A sale, gift, or delivery into the hand of another; especially, a sale, gift, delivery, or using which is the first of a series, and regarded as an omen for the rest; a first installment; an earnest; as the first money received for the sale of goods in the morning, the first money taken at a shop newly opened, the first present sent to a young woman on her wedding day, etc. "Their first good handsel of breath in this world." "Our present tears here, not our present laughter, Are but the handsels of our joys hereafter."
2.
Price; payment. (Obs.)
Handsel Monday, the first Monday of the new year, when handsels or presents are given to servants, children, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Handsel" Quotes from Famous Books



... and bear this flower Unto thy little Saviour; And tell Him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon His bib or stomacher; And tell Him, for good handsel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of a clean strait oaten reed, To charm His cries at time of need. Tell Him, for coral, thou hast none, But if thou hadst, He should have one; But poor thou art, and known to be Even as moneyless as He. Lastly, if thou canst win a kiss From those mellifluous ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... Barnabas! Job, that's you? Up stumps Solomon—bustling too? Shame, man! greedy beyond your years To handsel the bishop's shaving-shears? Fair play's a jewel! leave friends in the lurch? Stand on a line ere you ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... those insinuations about my knavery in the past, which "strict honour" did not permit him to countenance, in order thereby to give colour and force to his direct charges of knavery in the present, which "strict honour" did permit him to handsel. So in the fifth act he gave a start, and found to his horror that, in my miserable four pages, I had committed the "enormity" of an "economy," which in matter of fact he had got by heart before he began the play. Nay, he ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... day). Coming home to-night, a drunken boy was carrying by our constable to our new pair of stocks to handsel them. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... valiant men of arms; for within these two hours there met us one of your Cornish knights, and great words he spake, and anon with little might he was laid to the earth. And, as I trow, said Sir Sagramore, ye shall have the same handsel that he had. Fair lords, said Sir Tristram, it may so happen that I may better withstand than he did, and whether ye will or nill I will have ado with you, because he was my cousin that ye beat. And therefore here do your best, and wit ye well but if ye quit you the ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory

... peace some little while, and afterwards he stood up, and said to Oswif, "Take now my hand in handsel as a token that thou lettest ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders

... whither also messengers from Lafayette and the French Government were hurrying, on the like errand: at Bayonne, news met the poor lady that it was already all over, that she was now a widow, and her husband hidden from her forever.—Such was the handsel of the new year 1832 for Sterling in ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... waits, no decorating of the church for the morrow. Still, it was the end of the year—the period, by universal consent, dedicated to goodwill and rejoicing all over the world—the old "daft days" even of sober, austere Scotland. Jenny and Menie, in the kitchen, were looking forward to that Handsel Monday which is the Whit Monday of country servants, and the family gathering of the peasantry in Scotland. First footing and New Year's gifts were lighting up the servant girls' imaginations. The former may ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler



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