handsel

English

Alternative forms

• hansel

Etymology

Old English handselen, or Old Norse handsal. See sell, sale.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ˈhandsəl/

Noun

handsel (plural handsels)

1. (obsolete) A 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. - Fuller
   • Our present tears here, not our present laughter, Are but the handsels of our joys hereafter. - Herrick
3. The first installment, or first payment of money in a day or series.

Derived terms

• Handsel Monday, the first Monday of the new year, when handsels or presents are given to servants, children, etc.

Verb

handsel (third-person singular simple present handsels, present participle handselling, simple past and past participle handselled)

1. (transitive) To give a handsel to.
   • 2002, Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage 2003, p. 55:

     She would leave a gold guinea to hansel the baby.

2. (transitive) To inaugurate by means of some ceremony; to break in.
   • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 86:

     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.

3. (transitive) To use or do for the first time, especially so as to make fortunate or unfortunate; to try experimentally.
   • 1647, Thomas Fuller, Good Thoughts in Worse Times^[1]:

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

   • 1994, Michael Brodsky, ***, Four Walls Eight Windows, ISBN 978-1-56858-000-5, page 38:

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

Derived terms

• unhandseled

Anagrams

• handles