handbasket

English

Actor carrying a handbasket

Etymology

From hand +‎ basket.

Noun

handbasket (plural handbaskets)

1. A basket with a handle.

   Hyponym: maund

   • 1589, Martin Marprelate, Theses Martinianae‎^[1]:

     To speake what I doe thinke of the youth, I can not bee induced to thinke, that hee hath had his bringing vp at any other trade, then in carryeng long Meg of Westminsters hand-basket, and in attending vppon some other of his auntes, at her appointment while shee liued.

   • 1846, Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, page 185:

     […] she had always lost something out of a straw hand-basket, and was trying to find it, with all her might and main, among an immense quantity of English halfpence, which lay, like sands upon the seashore, at the bottom of it.

   • 1999, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 20, in Disgrace, page 179:

     She has a whole trolleyful of purchases, he a mere handbasket.

   • 2013, Paul Auster, Here and Now: Letters (2008–2011), page 182:

     I have always wondered how the world, which is very large, can fit into something as small as a handbasket. To deepen my confusion, I’m not even sure I know what a handbasket is. Aren’t all baskets in fact handbaskets, and if they are, isn’t the prefix hand wholly unnecessary? We should probably say: “The world is going to hell in a basket,” although that sounds even worse, doesn’t it?

Derived terms

• handbasket portion
• to hell in a handbasket, to heck in a handbasket