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hand-me-down

noun

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L585790 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

adj

Etymology: See hand down and me.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  1. 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.