hand-me-down
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L585790 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
adj
Etymology: See hand down and me.
- Used or second-hand, passed along by its prior user.
“And what costume shall the poor girl wear / To all tomorrow's parties? / A hand-me-down dress from who knows where”
“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.”
noun
Etymology: See hand down and me.
- An item that is passed along for someone else to use.
“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”
“But these routes have always had hand-me-downs that aren't really designed for the job.”
- A piece of clothing or other item which has been outgrown by an older sibling and passed down to a younger one.
verb
Etymology: See hand down and me.
- To pass along to someone else.
““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.”
“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.”